Poor Jenny Sits AFeeding
by Cold Shadow Lady
Summary: No-one could have guessed at the childhood of Davy Jones, or at the strange set of circumstances that united him with a rather bizarre new pet... A small vignette to while away the hours.
1. A Beautiful Friendship

It was a damp, chilly sort of morning. Inclement, with only the bright, utterly sodden dampness that a tropical monsoon can bring with it; that of soaked, cold, good-natured misery. No one stirred unless they had to. Those required to still be about scuttled about meekly like insects, huddled defensively under their oilskins. No one mentioned rain when they described the West Indies.

Therefore only lunatics or children would be actually… _out_, in this weather. Perhaps the two who were (the companions, if not the heroes of our story) could fall into both categories.

A small, hunched bundle of greying kersey was hunched up like an oversized mushroom on the very edge of the taffrail. You might have been forgiven for thinking it was in actual fact a mushroom; save for a very small pair of legs dangling easily over the side. One stocking was rumpled, if you looked closely – that, and what appeared to be a miniscule pink nose poking out of the top, confirmed it was a doll-sized child, contemplatively biting its nails with an anxious air.

The other was a wizened, weather-beaten creature with a good-humoured face and an air of permanent amiability; a man who never lost his head, because he took things as they came, or went, never mind what it was. It must have taken a huge feat of patience – or perhaps a little weakness in the brain, to be so permanently benign and easy, but Arthur Wrevelyen, Able Seaman of the _Dunfermline_ seemed to be possessed of a surfeit of optimism. No one ever used his first name, by the bye – he was a Cornishman born and bred, but because the last name clicked awkwardly on the English tongue, it had been slurred gradually, from Wrevelyan to Wyvern, and it stuck to him like tar ever after. No one could tell if he minded or not. He was not a very demonstrative sort of man.

Currently he was peering interestedly downwards, at the grey ripples of the ceaseless rain. He was bare-headed; his feathery, somewhat grizzled hair was plastered to his head with the weight of the water, and he was soaked to the skin. But still as absurdly good-natured as ever.

'No offence, lad,' he said easily, peering at the water, 'But I don't think the fish are bitin' today. Not in weather like this. Best wait, eh? There'll be other days…'

The mushroom turned a little, somewhat wetly, to reveal a pair of truculent blue eyes that did not admit of defeat. Two small, starfish-pink hands clutched a piece of stick and a length of string; a pathetic attempt at a fishing rod. It was doubtful if even _seaweed_ would fall for that trick.

'Nae fishy?' he said mournfully, waving the piece of twig hopefully. The accent could have been spread on bread. It was so thick it dripped off syllables like melted wax and scrambled over sentences, clouding everything in a shrill Scotch dialect. 'Want fishy!'

Wyvern hoped the poor thing would grow out of it amongst honest Englishmen. He was a sweet, piping little thing; powder monkeys were generally sharp-faced guttersnipes with wizened, cunning little faces. Not poppets who still discreetly sucked their thumb when no-one was looking….

'No fishy,' Wyvern agreed, tactfully trying to take the 'rod' away. He had been attempting to coax him off the taffrail for near an hour now, without any success. 'But maybe if we comes back tomorrow? And… maybe tomorrow we'll put something on the end o' the line, hmm? A bit of bacon, or something…' Wyvern gave up on reason with a sigh. 'Look, for God's sake, Davy… you're wet as a _rag._ Come on now – you won't catch anything. Dark as muck the water is here.'

'But the fishies _eat_ string!' The voice was a positive wail. Davy, if that was his name, seemed to be on the verge of disappointed tears, the blue eyes wobbling underneath the grey kersey hood in a very sniffly sort of way. 'Squint-eyed Joshy told me that the fishies only eat string, an'-'

'Joshy is an evil wretch of a snotty midshipman, and he'll come to a bad end one day,' Wyvern said firmly, scowling at the absent Joshua. 'Fish don't eat string. No, nor flying birds either.'

The hood turned upwards, disbelievingly. 'Ye mean he wasnae telling the _truth_?' he said, wonderingly.

'No.' Wyvern said shortly. 'He wasn't. You shouldn't believe a word of the gaff he spouts, boy. But the more shame to him for playing tricks. Ain't fair at all.'

'Boys whae tell lies go to a bad place,' Davy said piously, by way of personal consolation. 'Mammy said.'

'I'm sure she did, Jonesy. I'm sure she did.' Wyvern lifted the boy with a faint grunt of effort off the rail. He was light – a mere hanging sack of empty weight, but Wyvern was not as hale as he used to be, and a twinge of rheumatism plagued him now in damp weather.

It was an odd friendship, made out of mutual loneliness. Wyvern did not care very much for where he was, or who he served with; one ship is very like another. And little Jonesy, poor thing, was kicked about like a child-shaped football by the wizened powder-monkeys and the idle young dogs who hung about the midshipman's mess. Although he need not have been quite as isolated as he was - a temper like an infuriated mule tempered with a pride a Rear-Admiral might have baulked at does not make for an easy life aboard a rough-and-tumble merchant ship.

For instance, in the normal course of the day's business, a battle-hardened cynic of nine, Know-All Ned (no self-respecting powder monkey had such a thing as normal names, it went against nature), cheerfully threw a bucket at Davy's small, dark head and told him to be 'quick with it, Scotch Jock!'

Now, a normal boy might have grimaced and taken the jibe in good part. Most. In this case, it took three twelve-year olds and repeated elbows in the stomach to prevent 'Scotch Jock' from beating Ned's brains out against the gun-deck, as a matter of national pride. No-one should have _quite_ that much vitriol at four. That spoke an unhappy history for itself. But he was such a _little _slip of a thing… Wyvern knew for a fact that Jonesy kept a battered worsted rabbit under his pillow with only one button eye, and guarded it jealously.

The reader may well ask: what on earth had an arthritic old swab and a half-crazed child in common?

The answer would have to be: mutual understanding. Or rather, amused tolerance and vague affection on Wyvern's part, and a sort of bewildered, grateful acceptance on young Davy's part, as though he could not but wonder… _why_. But Wyvern had got him out of enough scrapes as it was – and his alliance was a good thing aboard the _Dunfermline_; the ship was Scottish only in name and certainly not in nature. And the troubled politics of the time boded ill for anyone unlucky enough to come from the Borders.

Jones wriggled determinedly out of Wyvern's grip once he was down, dropping his useless toy of a fishing rod. But he still poked his nose hopefully over the side, standing on tiptoe with a faintly hopeful look.

'Look, there's no fishy!' Wyvern said impatiently. 'Unless you're planning to sing to 'em, and even then I wouldn't -'

Jones looked awkwardly up at him, his face a little pink. 'Wyvern…' he said cautiously, blinking raindrops out of his eyes. 'Do boys whae tell lies really go tae a bad place? Really? Like Mammy said?'

Ah. Wyvern sensed complicated ground here. He changed tack. 'Depends, Jonesy.' He said mildly. 'Depends what sort of lie it is.'

'Oh.' Davy stared at the deck, tracing a pattern with the toe of his shoe. 'If… if I really knew fishies didnae eat string?' he asked forlornly. 'Am I still going tae a bad place? Only I swore nae tae tell anyone, ever, an' it's really secret, an'-'

'Secret, eh?' Wyvern said, frowning. 'How secret, Jonesy? This isn't any of Know All Ned's tricks, is it? If it's some daft wager-'

Poor child. He suddenly looked agonised, as if caught in a frightful position. 'I cannae tell _anyone,' _he said uneasily, still trailing his shoe. 'Only Pretty Lady said dinnae say, and I'm no' a tell-tale.'

Pretty Lady? Probably an invisible friend, Wyvern decided, with relief. Some pretend mother he'd made up for himself after – after whatever had happened to Jonesy's real mother. He never did find out. At least he wasn't about to fall off the taffrail and drown.

It is a pity Wyvern did not quiz Jonesy more on the 'Pretty Lady.' If he had known what he learnt later, he would never have forgiven himself for leaving the poor thing alone. But he merely grinned, pulled the damp kersey a little more closely about the small, nodding little head, and took himself off for a quiet drink below, in the warm.

Leaving a very small boy alone in the rain, with only the water for company. Or perhaps…

Not quite _just_ the water. The minute Wyvern was gone, his moppet of a friend tottered over to the taffrail again as though drawn on an invisible thread, looking apprehensively over the wooden ledge. Admittedly with some fright; the waters were very black and very deep, and Davy had the sort of fantastical imagination that terrifies its owner; the thought of an unknown _something _lurking out there that _wasn't_ the Pretty Lady was nearly enough to send him shivering back into the galley. But he peeked over the edge with a frightened dauntlessness that seemed older than his years. What four meagre years there were.

'Lo?' he said, in a whisper. 'Pretty Lady?'

Silence, apart from the slapping of the waves against the hull, and the dripping of the ceaseless rain. Jonesy wiped his nose on his sleeve, blinked wetly (possibly with a little more salty tears than he would ever have admitted to) and tried again. 'Pretty Lady?'

'You'se know,' a voice said conversationally, seemingly out of the raindrops, 'Dat a very silly name for me, boy chi'le. I'se no a princess, you'se know _dat. _And I'se certainly not a _lady._' The voice emphasised the word with a sort of bubbling amusement that said ladies, as far as they were concerned, could go hang themselves.

Jonesy let out a half-strangled squeal , nearly falling from his precarious post in a tumble of sodden hood and very wet stockings. He righted himself, with a water-drenched squelch, and sniffled hopefully in the direction of the voice. A pair of cool amber eyes stared back from a great distance, it seemed – although the rain made everything indistinct and faded. And he was a very, very _small_ boy, after all.

'You came!'

'Told you'se, boy chi'le. My, what a li'l thing you'se are! You'se not grown yet? You'se still mouse-sized, poor l'il piccaninny…'

'I'm growin', Missy Lady.' Jones said stoutly, bashfully tracing a pattern with the tip of his shoe again. 'Wyvern says I'll be a wee bit bigger than Know-All Ned when I grow, anyway, an' then I can bash his heid n'-'he glowered at the floor.

'Dey's not kind to my boy chi'le?'

To be fair, Davy hesitated here. You didn't tell tales, and besides, it made him seem… small. So he shook his head by way of evasive answer.

'M'alright, Missy Lady,' he muttered awkwardly.

'Ahhh, li'l liar!' But it was spoken kindly. 'You'se no tale bearer, dat it?'

A moment's pause. A nod this time.

'Good. Dat's all for de better. But you'se lonely?'

Another, miniscule nod, coupled by a slight hitch of the shoulders, and followed by a very wet and miserable sneeze.

'Not so good for my boy chi'le, I'se see. Well, I'se not keep you'se long…'

'No!' Another wail from Jonesy, who jumped from his sentinel's post with imploring eyes. 'P'ease… I've nae seen you in ever 'n ever!'

'D'ere's a good reason for dat, piccaninny. When you'se older. But I came like I promised to my sweet l'il boy chi'le, hmm? Didn't I?'

A hand gently chucked Jonesy under the chin, as though he was in truth the almost-baby he really was. He let loose a gurgle of little-boy laughter like a drain.

'D'ere. All better now? Now. I'se tak' care of you'se, boy ch'ile. You'se mine. But you fetch me a slop jar. An' some seawater, an'… we'se see what we'se can do about de loneliness.'

Something in Davy's rather small memory flicked a card about pumpkins and lizards, so he nodded, eyes wide, and toddled giddily over the deck until he found the slop jar – an empty relic of the current captain's fondness for stewed prunes. He was not in truth very sure _what_ the pretty Missy Lady what. She had been a cinnamon-scented presence in his life for 'ever an' ever', to be sure, but since Jones' mind was as tangled and confused as a ball of string with cold and childishness, he half thought she was, perhaps, a fairy godmother. Or a mammy. Something in between the two.

'I-is it goin' tae be a coach?' he asked timidly (with real fear just in case prancing stallions did appear on the deck of the Dumfernline; Jones was aware that that would take more than a little explaining if it really happened). 'Only-'

'Pshaw! I'se not give you'se dat. What use is dat to you'se? No, I gi'e you somet'ing much better. Dey's rare, and ve'y loyal if you'se treat dem right.'

Something slithered, along with the seawater, into the slop jar. Davy heard it slide with a buttery squelch, a sort of unpleasantly 'squellopy sound', as he afterwards described it. He could not see it in the darkness. He could scarcely see his own hand in front of his face, let alone more than the liquid, eloquent eyes of Missy Lady or the… the thing in the jar.

'Wha- whae is it?'

'Dat's for you'se to work out, boy chi'le. Look after her; de females precious rare, and dey much more active than… some. Do dat for me, and you'se see me 'gain _very_ soon.'

'Promise?' Jonesy said doubtfully. He did not want to take care of the thing in the jar; much less find out what it actually _was_- but he'd have braved most things for a chance to see Missy Lady, the maybe-fairy godmother who talked to him like a mama would, but was far nicer than a mama...

A sudden cessation of movement, and the disappearance of the amber eyes, alarmed Jonesy so much that she was going again that he ran after her, slamming into the rail. 'Wait! Missy Lady!'

No reply. She'd gone again. And she hadn't said when she was coming back.

The thing in the jar squeaked. Jones looked forlornly into it, with an air of abandonment, and then felt his way towards the tiny sliver of heat and light that led downwards to the galley.

Wyvern peered at it owlishly. 'Caught it, you say?' he said suspiciously. 'With your fishing line?' He tapped on the glass of the slop jar. 'Well, mostly I'd say that's an octopus, Jonesy. Squid, or somethin' like that. Nice if you boil 'em in a stew, but a bit rubbery otherwise-'

'Are octopussies rare?' Jonesy said thoughtfully, splashing a pink hand into the jar. It was an ugly thing; all long trailing strands of rubbery pale pink legs like strips of blancmange and complicated mouth; an unusually wide mouth, too. Octopi are docile creatures, with their blinking little blue-black eyes and shy habits. Nothing like _this_ specimen, unless nature had gone very astray. It had beady and unusually human brown eyes that took in the weird world outside the jar with an air of preternatural cunning.

'Them's probably suckers,' Wyvern said sharply. 'I wouldn't do that, 'less you want to lose a hand, Jonesy. Not particularly rare, octopussies. They're everywhere – what the _hell_ are you doing? Jonesy!'

To his evident horror, Davy had put his hand in the jar and attempted to scratch the creature's stomach as though it were a small puppy. It made a complicated keening noise like the cry of a curlew.

'I allus wanted a dog,' Davy said happily, watching it. 'Mammy ne'er let me hae one, though. Said it'd get fleas. An' boys whae get puppies wi'out askin' go tae a bad place.'

'You're going to _keep_ it?' Wyvern said doubtfully. 'Ain't you goin' to eat it?' Although he wouldn't answer for the taste of the thing. 'S'ppose it's not different to them daft birds… I s'ppose.' He looked down dubiously at the jar. The… thing was making a hopeful attempt to digest Jonesy's fingers, although the lack of teeth rendered it somewhat difficult. It was merely ineffectually licking them. Wyvern shuddered. 'What the hell are you going to call it?'

'I thought o' Jenny,' Davy said vaguely, putting one electric blue eye to the jar so it was magnified a million time into fantastic shapes. 'Like pretty Jenny, in the song, whae sits a-weeping, 'cause she makes that funny greetin' noise all the time…'

And thus pretty Jenny, as she was christened, came into his possession. Wyvern never found out how he knew she was a girl; as far as he knew, the thing looked an unpleasant piece of prehistoric something dredged from the abysmal deeps and Jonesy was as daft as a twopenny brush.

Which was broadly true, in a way.


	2. Of Beef and Skeely Skippers

It was not Jonesy's fault, exactly, Wyvern reasoned – much, much later on. But he felt the blame all really started with the dratted… _thing,_ in the jar. And the beef. That was what led to what Jenny became. The beef.

Because Jonesy, poor mite, treated his somewhat squelching new pet with exactly the same sort of care and attention one might give, say, a small puppy. And it was only a small confused child like Jonesy who would see _absolutely no difference_. He carefully put in handfuls of seaweed, in case Jenny ate weed – which she didn't, but she floated amongst it quite happily. He stared at the jar for hours, into the bargain, whereas once he would have curled up with the toy rabbit, occasionally poking a speculative finger in to see whether she'd try and wrap her tentacles round it. It evolved into a game, like teasing a dog with a stick.

Wyvern didn't like Jenny. There was something unnatural about it; he'd have been happier if Jonesy had had an actual octopus – at least you knew where you were with something you recognised. Having an unidentifiable animal in a jar – well, it could be anything. And almost certainly bad luck. But…

For all Wyvern would have gladly tipped the thing overboard if he thought he could have gotten away with it, he couldn't do it. Not to Davy. It was hard keeping Jenny a secret.

'Whae do ye think she eats?'

They were settled in the lazarette tonight; a warm, small room with a brick-lined oven where meals were prepared. More specifically, meals for the captain, who was a glum, slightly balding man with a slight list to one side, as though he could never quite find his balance. And often crippled with indigestion He was, as Jonesy contemptuously snuffled at him, 'tae small' to be a captain.

Wyvern was amused at that. Jonesy apparently had his childish eye on the rank, but he was the size of a button mushroom.

'How big do you have to be ter be captain, Jonesy?' he asked good-humouredly. 'If I was to go in for it, say.'

Jonesy looked him over. 'Ye're still tae small,' he said stubbornly, from his own modest height of somewhat below three feet. 'Sides, you're _Wyvern_. Ain't nobody like Wyvern – and ye wouldnae talk tae me if you were captain.'

'And you? Would you talk to me, Jonesy?'

'Maybe.' Jonesy said generously. 'In between fightin' Englishmen an' boggarts an' foreign scum…'

Jonesy had a very particular picture of captains, drawn from the ghastly penny-dreadful tales of the powder monkeys at night. Know-All Ned had an invincible stock of them. Captains were blonde and handsome – those were the _good_ ones, who fought off giant monsters and harpooned huge whales and fought hand-to hand with Spaniard scum. They tended to sound a little like Know-All Ned, true, but… they were still exciting, for all Know-All Ned always saw himself as the hero. And they had to be very tall. This was a large feature of Captains. Perhaps from being small and buffeted about like a small pink cannonball, Jonesy had acquired a very wistful view of what it would be like to be too big to push around.

Or there were the fearsome ones. The other ones, who drank human blood and tied lighted matches in their hair and drank gunpowder curdled and shot their whole crew in sinister pacts with the Devil…

Jonesy had to keep a candle lighted by his hammock after the Blackbeard tales, in case the writhing ghost came after him with maggots crawling in his beard and his eyes dropping out. Know-All Ned had a ghoulish imagination.

Wyvern tapped the glass of the slop-jar, musingly, returning to the problem of Jenny. 'Not seaweed? Or fish? Have you tried fish, Jonesy?'

'She doesnae like 'em salted,' Davy said peevishly. 'An' I can't catch any 'cause they won't lend me anything tae catch 'em with – Joshy says I'm a wee snotty who'll only get tangled up and fall in-'

'There! Don't cry! Don't cry!' Wyvern said, alarmed. 'Look, if she's a meat-eater maybe something else 'll do, eh? Beef? A bit of pork fat? She'll die if she don't eat nothing, Jonesy –'

Perhaps not the wisest thing to say – Davy's face crumpled into the hot pink crushed look of someone frantically trying not to cry – and failing miserably.

'I gots tae look after her! The Pretty Lady said so!' he said urgently, tugging on Wyvern's coat. 'She's mine, Wyvern! I _gots_ tae look after her!!!'

'What?' Wyvern was perplexed. 'I'm sure Jenny's very pretty, Jonesy, but-'

'You don't understand!!' Jonesy wailed in frustration. 'Listen!!! The Pretty Lady gave me Jenny frae the sea; I got to look after her! I gots to!!'

Wyvern stopped dead, a piece of raw and bloody beef between his fingers. 'What pretty lady is this, Jonesy?' And something in his voice made the little boy curl back, evasively.

'I cannae tell! I promised nae tae tell!'

The blood from the beef dripped crimson moisture from Wyvern's fingers, idly falling into Jenny's jar – and making the small thing squirm frantically around her jar like a puppy teased with a ball, trying to find out where the blood was coming from. She bobbed on the surface, making keening noises.

'You can tell me, Jonesy. You will tell me.' Wyvern's voice had gone hard. 'Christ boy, what have you been meddling in? There's all manner of sea-witches and boggarts and mer-maids in the deeps, and now you tell me one of them gave this – thing to you?!'

Jonesy's face went puce. 'She's nae a mer-maid!' he shouted shrilly. 'They hae tails and she ain't got one! An- and' she's nae a witch either!! She's guid, I tell ye, she's guid!! She looks after me, an'…she's nice. But I'll ne'er see her again if I don't looks after Jenny properly…'

'For God's sake… why didn't you say this before?' Wyvern moaned, tugging on his feathery hair. 'That could be anything! From the darkest depths of the abysmal deep – it could be a sea-serpent or a vicious…monster! Could even be a Kraken, God knows, but they're supposed to be all gone now. All the old evils die out, praise the Lord…'

Jonesy looked terrified. 'Whae's a K-kraken?'

'In the depths of abysmal sea, the Kraken sleepeth,' Wyvern told him darkly. 'Supposed to rise and consume the world at the end of all things – 'and then by men and angels shall be seen the Kraken…' Huge, devouring thing – full of ancient hunger…'

Jenny snapped impatiently, making a gummy, slithering sound as she leapt in and out of her jar, sniffing the meat held above her in Wyvern's hand.

Davy looked alarmed – he actually stood on tiptoe to peer through a knothole, in case said monster was rising like Poseidon from the deep to pursue them, before incredulously looking at Jenny.

'Nae Jenny,' he said stoutly. 'Jenny's nice.'

'Oh, I don't doubt that. But what about this 'pretty lady', eh?' Wyvern's voice was anxious. 'Look, she could be anything, Jonesy. Maybe even the Devil in disguise. You wouldn't like to go to –' he changed tack. 'A bad place now, would you? Like your mammy said?'

Had Jonesy been Wyvern's size, he would have knocked him to the floor – as it was, he just butted him with a streaming face, small hands knotted into fists. 'Dinnae ye say that!' he howled. 'No' about her! She's guid! She's better than a mama, even! She looks after me! Ye say that again an' I'll – I'll be glad if ye go to a bad place! I will! I willnae be sorry!'

Wyvern looked down, tight-lipped. But he said nothing, merely waited, until the in truth rather pathetic attack had subsided, before picking up his hysterical young friend and wordlessly giving him the side of raw beef.

'You'd best feed her, Jonesy,' he said huskily. 'Look, she likes the blood. Must be a meat eater, after all, eh? I'm sorry. We'll look after her for the Pretty Lady, I promise. I'd like to hear about her some time, if that's alright? She sounds a mighty fine woman.'

Davy was already contrite. 'M'sorry, I'm sorry…' he mumbled. 'I didnae mean it, Wyvern, really. It's supposed tae be a secret…' He let the beef fall into the water, watching tiredly over Wyvern's shoulder as he rocked him. 'Look, she's eatin' it!'

Jenny was indeed eating it – and viciously, too. Although as yet she had no teeth, there was something savage about the way she let it drift within reach of her tentacles, as though she were no more than a hunk of seaweed, and then – worried it, like a toothless tiger, all quick predatorial movement. She made soft little crooning noises as she bit into it.

'Yeuch!' Wyvern said in disgust. 'She's sucking the blood from it with her tentacles! That's…'

Davy watched with interest over Wyvern's shoulder. 'That's whae they're frae?' he said, wonderingly. 'She's _beautiful_… better 'n a mouldy auld parrot any day…'

'Beautiful ain't the word,' Wyvern said gruffly, as Jonesy yawned exhaustedly over one shoulder. 'You ought to be asleep, boy. No use nodding over your powder if the French hove in sight, is it?'

'M' nae tired…' Davy said drowsily. 'Nae at 'll…'

'Oh, you're a proper brave one, aren't you? Stubborn as a mule…' Wyvern rocked him a little. 'Now then, say I sing you something, Jonesy. And then you get back aft where you belong. Want the 'Bonny Brown Mare?' or 'A Cobbler's Daughter? –'

'Nae those ones,' Jonesy said sleepily. 'They're _borin'_. Sing 'Sir Patrick Spens'. I _likes_ that one...'

Wyvern barely knew it; it was a Scottish Border Ballad. Rather typical of Jonesy, he chose no simple, pretty little rhyme – it was a long mournful ballad about shipwrecks, and death, and drowning. But he crooned it, none the less, although it was somewhat lacking – you needed to have, like Jonesy, an accent that rattled through it like a mouthful of stones.

'_The King sits in Dunfermline town,  
Drinkin' the blude-reid wine  
'0 whaur will I get a skeely skipper  
Tae sail this new ship o' mine?''_

Jonesy crooned out a feeble accompaniment in his own, high-pitched voice. Wyvern in truth, had no idea what a 'skeely skipper' was, or how you went about being 'skeely', but it seemed to be the very pinnacle of nautical accomplishment, and Jonesy often reverently described a perfect captain as 'skeely' – so it must be good... By the time he had got to the sixth verse, Jonesy was fast asleep.


	3. Captain, First Mate, Friend

The years – two of them, at least, blurred in a grey haze aboard the _Dunfermline_. I am sorry to say that little changed in the course of that time for Wyvern, or for Jones – whilst a somewhat older powder monkey, he was still that: a powder monkey. Which was a pity, for he was bright; and lettered, into the bargain, a rare set of circumstances.

Wyvern had ambled quietly into his place as Able Seaman long since, and was content to stay there, never seeking for more than his comfortable berth. But Jonesy niggled him, like a broken tooth. Not just Jenny, drat it (who by this time, on a regular diet of raw meat, was now almost the same size as her jar, and constantly escaping), but the 'pretty lady', and the fact that Jonesy really was _too _bright a child to spend his life throwing fish guts over the bulwarks, or swabbing the greasy slick of whale oil from the deck. He could make midshipman at least, with the right handling, though Wyvern grumpily, with a sense of the injustice of it all. If he got a bit learned enough to take the exam – say a bit of navigation, or the odd word in Latin, or something - something to _show_ them all. Besides, in childish circles Jonesy was something of a dragon, since the defeat of Know-All Ned. Oh – and the arrival of Jenny.

None of the other boys _liked _Jenny. They'd been curious at first; and slightly repulsed at Davy's spectacularly ugly pet. And the fact that Jonesy, small and 'daft' as he was, saw nothing wrong with picking her up (provided she was damp, Jenny could manage wonderfully out of water – a little like a frog) and tickling her stomach, or training her with live pilchards to sit on his shoulder like a rubbery parrot, trailing her tentacles behind her, or to jump, when asked, up and down three times to the tune of 'Bonny Blue Bells.' Jonesy was the only creature Jenny loved, and they all knew it, and because Jenny was so strange – and had developed a substantial set of needle sharp fangs that she sank into your thumb if you weren't careful, they gave her and her master a wide berth. No-one wanted to lose a finger to Jenny. Jonesy was something very much like a keeper of monsters.

Know-All Ned, however, was now deeply respectful. He was a pale, anaemic looking boy, tall and gangling, with stone-coloured eyes and an amiable smile, topped by a shock of white-blonde hair the colour of flax – the leader, due to his fists, but, in truth, possessing a rather easy-going nature. It's easy to be good-natured when there are few threats to your world, after all. And he was very much impressed by Jones' vitriol. It was like having a small puppy savage your feet – surprising, vaguely amusing, and disconcerting all in the same breath.

'Why's she called Jenny?' he said one day, when both their backs were aching from a fit of industrious scrubbing. In times of peace powder monkeys got the menial jobs, and there was nothing more menial than scrubbing. Parts of your neck seemed to fuse to your spine as you did it.

Jonesy looked up scowlingly from his brush, which was almost bigger than he was. He was still small enough to sit on the scuffed, balding brush and clean the deck by a sort of crabwise bottom shuffle, even at seven. Wyvern had despaired of him ever growing by now. 'Whae?'

'Your pet. The thing in the jar. Why's she called Jenny?' Know-All Ned repeated patiently. He was rewarded by a suspicious stare, long and hard, before Jonesy answered. Perhaps he remembered 'Scotch Jock' a little too well. Or the new, jeering epithet bestowed on him by 'Squint-Eyed' Joshy, the Antichrist to all small cabin boys aboard the Dunfermline. The nickname 'Davy Dumpling' would rankle in Jones' heart for some time afterwards.

But then again. Know-All Ned was the very closest to a 'skeely skipper' Jonesy had ever met. He told stories, and fought like a demon in rough-and-tumble, and although unforgivably English, was at least amiably English. A Border boy, the closest thing to a Scotchman Jonesy had met so far. And it was a little lonely, with only Wyvern and a squeaking Jenny for company…

Admiration won over ruffled pride. Jonesy consented to answer him.

'Cause o' the rhyme, ' he muttered, embarrassedly. Nursery rhymes were for babies, anyone knew _that. _He felt hot, and awkward, admitting it. 'Ye knae. The one about poor Jenny sittin' a weeping.'

'Oh.'Know-All Ned scrubbed with renewed vigour at a particularly stubborn patch of grease before sitting back on his haunches to admire his handiwork. 'Thought so. Just wondered if it was for anything else.'

'No.' Jonesy staggered to his feet with his own brush.' Like whae?'

'Like your mama?' Ned suggested mildly. 'Only if I had a pet, like a tamarind monkey or a parrot or something, I'd call it after my mama…'

He trailed away. Something had gone rigid and cold in Jonesy's small pudding-shaped face that made him crawl back a few hasty steps, in case Jonesy attempted to beat his head into the deck again. When he answered, it was with a high-pitched, shrill little voice that clipped his accent into severe vowels. Like a knife-edge.

'I've nae got a mama anymore,' Jonesy said slowly. 'Nae anymore. Ye lot made her go away.'

Ned felt his shoulder blades dig into the timbers of the bulwarks, as though trying to carve their way through the side of the ship. 'Not me!' he said, in abject terror. Jonesy was six years younger than him, but there was a frosty, slightly crazed light in the boy's eye that scared him worse than the rattle and pop of the twelve-pounder guns. Poets have spoken of the dread curse in a dead man's eye – but far worse is that of the vehement reproach in an orphan's. It is of the sort that would gladly see the world burn - when it is old enough to repay it in kind. 'Not me! I never saw your mama! I didn't hurt her, Jonesy!'

A vague light of reason returned to Davy's eyes; he put down the solid swab's brush, at least, to sit on it almost conversationally. 'Oh, _ye_,' he said amiably. 'Nae _ye_. Just… ye'r lot.'

'My lot?'

'English, o' course,' Jonesy said scornfully. 'Damned reivers comin' o'er the border and stealin' our cattle and burnin' our houses. An' soldiers. Specially redcoats. Mama said redcoats go tae a bad place too. They ought tae…' his voice trailed off, distantly.

Ned grasped at the unspoken truth. It was nearly dusk; he could barely see Jones' small face. It was obscured in shadow. But he took a wild, brave leap, and patted one shoulder kindly.

'Did they kill your mama?' he whispered, in an awed, shocked voice. Jones' shoulder quivered under his hand – he jerked away, out of sight of Ned.

'No!' he snapped, short and sharp as a terrier. 'Leastways I-I dinnae knae, 'cause Jamie wouldnae let me look, and – and he went an' got Pa's auld musket, an' he said nae to follow, and – I got left alone. An' they burnt everything but Rabbit, an' stole the chickens…'

'Jamie?'

'Ma brother.' Jonesy sniffed, a strong hint that he was wiping his eyes furiously on his dirty sleeve. 'Dinnae knae where he is. We got separated afore I came here, an'… I wouldnae know where tae find him. Nae now. 'Sides, I'm the milksop…'

'You! A milksop!' Ned's tone of admiration touched Jones' pride; he beamed in the darkness. 'Gawd, Jonesy, there can't be much tougher n' you, can there? I'd give my eyes to be half as good as you…'

'Really?' Jonesy was beaming wide now, momentarily forgetting his sorrows. Ned did not forget so blithely; he could see the picture in his head; burning homes, screaming women – swords, vague shades on horseback slicing through the dark. Trees, hiding. And Jonesy, cuddling that rabbit of his; perhaps with a brother – a taller version on Jonesy, with a musket in his hand and murder in his bright-blue eyes…

No wonder Jonesy was good at fighting. But it wasn't a talent Ned would swap anything for. You lost too much and saw too far.

Davy was still beaming, idly kicking his battered leather shoe against the brush with a self-important air.

'I've decided,' he announced grandly. 'I like ye, Ned. If ye like, ye can be my first mate when I'm captain.'

Ned laughed; it was a good game. 'Captain? What after old Ninny Nicholson? With his weak stomach? Hope you're not goin' to be like _him_, Jonesy.'

'No,' Jonesy said severely. 'Nae _anything_ like him. I'm goin' tae be the best. Like in the stories, an' – an' be tall, an' have a really big hat wi' a grand feather in it, an'…an'… fight plumed serpents, and swing around the ropes, an'… an' fight giant octopussies…'

He considered this. 'Except Jenny. 'Cause she's nice, an' she's goin' tae be captain too…'

'Hope you feed Joshy to her,' Ned said cheerfully. 'First. And then we can go an' discover El Dorado, and lost cities of gold…'

Jonesy clapped his hands excitedly. 'An' rescue people!'

'People we like!'

'Only people we like. I'm nae goin' tae rescue people like _Joshy_. Only Wyvern, and you, and Jenny…' He looked thoughtfully at Ned. 'Whae's your last name, Ned?'

'What?'

'Well, ye must have a last name,' Jonesy said, with an air of complacency. 'Stands tae reason. An' I can't call ye Mr Ned when I'm captain…'

'Can I still call you Jonesy?'

'Only if it's _Captain _Jonesy.' Davy said sternly. He took his daydreams very seriously.

'Oh.' Ned looked embarrassed. 'No-one can say my last name, y'know. I don't really…'

'Pleeease?'

'It's…Maccus,' Ned muttered, looking sulky. 'Don't laugh! No one can say it, an' they think it's all fancy Latin and lah-di-dah…'

'Mack –uss,' Jonesy pronounced it carefully. 'That's nae bad, Ned...'

'Not good, either.' Ned stared at his shabby boots. 'Wish I had your last name. Jones is like Smith; no-one minds a bit.'

'I dinnae mind Maccus.' Jonesy stared at his own boot, through which a peep of shabby hand-knitted stocking showed. Wyvern had many accomplishments to his name. He had offered to teach Jones to knit his own stockings –'a talent that'll keep you shod for life, lad!' but hitherto Davy had disgustedly declined. Knitting was 'frae wee girlies.'

But today he'd made a friend. And a good one, at that. For all he was a Border boy…

'Ye steal cattle,' Jonesy said accusingly, swinging off the topic. It was a fairly friendly attack; merely Jonesy shifting for position as the leader of the group. Ned was big and strong, but naturally made to be a born follower. His amiable nature was his downfall. 'Reivers. Stealin' cattle and chickens.'

'Your lot steals everything they can lay their hands on!' Ned (newly surnamed Maccus) retorted. 'Even sisters. Our Maisie went off with a reiver one night, an' sent us word she'm married over the border. She's got twins now.'

'Ye've still got family?' Jonesy looked wistful all of a sudden. 'Is she pretty? Like the Pretty Lady?'

Ned looked curious. 'Who's the Pretty Lady?'

'Oh.' Davy shook his small curls sharply. 'Ne'er mind. Want tae feed Jenny? She won't bite if I soothes her first.'

Ned looked both aghast and excited at the same time. _'Please!'_ he breathed. 'Oh please!'

And so began Jones' first friendship, and (although he did not know it) the beginning of his first mate. Ned was an _amazing_ friend. He had whole _scores _of stories; made up from somewhere inside that lolling head of his.

It was only a game at first; just pretend. A fantasy pretend; one where small, vitriolic Jonesy was tall and grown-up and had a ostrich-feather plume in his hero's hat, and Ned Maccus was a hardened, swaggering fellow who knew about the secret maps to El Dorado and what mermaids sang about and why sea-serpents had emeralds that grew on their backs like feathered plumes… the inventions, by the bye, were Ned's at first. Davy gradually began to suggest things like discovering the silver mines of the Americas and fighting against the 'English.' Or the Spanish conquistadors. Sometimes both at the same time, and always against impossible odds. Ned scrawled maps with pieces of pilfered charcoal all over the floor of the gun deck; secret passages and enchanted castles and hidden caves; the landscape of childhood's wildest imagination.

And gradually – Jonesy began to tell him things, too. Real things, and stranger than any of the blood-drooling corsairs or walking corpses Ned could conjure up. Things that made him wonder about old stories and exactly how true they were after all…

Because Jonesy had confided to him about the 'pretty lady.'

He'd met _her_, he said in a hushed voice, when he was too little to rightly remember much about it. Pa had been alive then; a slight scent of tobacco and someone very tall, that was all that was left in Jonesy's memory. A fisherman. Ned had nodded; Border men knew the risks of the North Sea, English and Scotch alike. Fishermen were brave; ten times more than the sin-laden pirates Ned talked about.

'There was a storm, ye see…' Davy was sat bolt upright in his hammock like a dead man in a ghost story, holding his huge blanket around him like a winding sheet. 'Ev'ryone has tae look out frae the fishermen then – wi' lanterns and beacons tae show them back the way home. And all o' the menfolk was out in it, Mam said.'

Ned shivered under his own blanket. The other boys were asleep; or listening. Hard to tell.

'I was smaller then,' Jonesy said, his huge blue eyes suddenly vague and far away. 'An' I didnae want tae go an' leave home an' Rabbit behind, an' we was all traipsing about the cliff, and it was sae slippery – I hated them steps. And we was goin' tae fast, and I let go o' Mam's hand tae try tae ask her tae go slower, an-'

'And?'

'I fell in.'

Ned opened his pebble-grey eyes very wide, blinking them three times before he understood. 'In the _sea_, Jonesy? In _winter_?!'

No one survives the North Sea in winter. It is the sea at its most vengeful; it howls against the cliffs, clawing whole chunks of earth and sand away with greedy fingers, dashing itself against the rocks like a madwoman crazed with jealousy at the huddled, frightened humanity on the safety of land. Not even fishermen live; unless they have the Devil's luck on their side and can be swiftly rescued. Sometimes not even then. The waves can beat the life from you with the sheer violence of the elements.

And here was a boy; then only three, who could only just walk and talk – falling like a dropped pebble into the cold stone teeth of the North Sea.

Ned rubbed his eyes, as though to make doubly sure Jonesy was not a ghost. 'But you're alive!' he said stupidly. 'You… you didn't…'

Jonesy looked uneasy. 'I knae,' he whispered. 'I should hae. Mammy said I should hae been… deid.' His face cleared, into a far more cheerful expression. 'But it's nice tae knae the Pretty Lady saved me. I reckon she did, ye knae. Last thing I knew was I was wet and scared and goin' tae die… and then…'

And then, according to Jonesy, he just woke up, after everything closed into ice-black darkness. As though he'd been asleep. Of course, he couldn't put quite what he meant into words; not to Ned. And the Pretty Lady was such a secret that he hadn't even trusted Wyvern with it; something would have been lost, diminished about the Pretty Lady if he'd been able to say everything about her. Jones was a secretive boy; he wanted to keep his scarcely believable fairy godmother to himself.

Because that was how he saw her, at first. More like a fairy mother than a godmother; a strange, beautiful thing like lightning, or marsh-fire.

If you were, however, to put what really happened into coherent, eloquent words, then little Davy Jones woke up damp, sopping wet- but on land. And curled up on the knee of a lady he had never seen before, underneath an upturned fishing boat beached for mending. The rain drummed angrily on the rotten timbers above their heads.

No-one, except a small wide-eyed toddling thing with no knowledge of the world, would have called her beautiful. And at one first, terrified look, Jonesy might have agreed with them, and wailed his head off, because she was so _strange_. There were no women with soft copper skin on the cliff top. They were pale creatures, dour in sad grey kersey and homespun linen; drab, like pigeons. And life was too hard scratching a living from the sea for them to smile much. _This_ lady glowed, as though she was on fire, in gorgeous plumage like a tropical bird of paradise made up out of carelessly stitched rags of fiery brocade and crimson and saffron yellows that made his eyes swim. But slower and slower the hiccups came, as gradually his wide-eyed curiosity overtook his fright, because the lady was _pretty_ in her otherness, in the way her braided, dark hair swung lightly over her shoulders; lightly touched with damp, but nothing else. She was hardly even wet, although the wind and rain outside was raging as full and ferocious as ever. And her eyes looked kindly. They were very large, too. Davy found himself wondering, with his breathless, three-year old mind, whether there were candles behind them that made them light up so prettily. He caught the wail in his throat and put his fingers in his mouth with a half-hiccup.

'Mamma?' he said doubtfully, still sniffling a little with cold, and fright. 'Want Mamma!'

The pretty lady looked at him with amusement. 'You'se not gwine cry?' She spoke in a sort of husky, bumblebee hum, plaintive and eloquent. 'Dat's brave, l'il one. You'se got spirit like a backward donkey, so you'se have! My, what a l'il t'ing you'se are! So small! You'se 'kay? I'see you'se fall, and I t'ink, dat boy too li'l to die in de surf and de gale. I'se sorry, you'se know. De North Sea not my waters. Me, I'se like de clear waters where it's warmer. Dat's my home.'

Davy's face crumpled in puzzlement. He'd thought the sea was always a flat grey mirror of chilliness and squalls. It was a nice story, though. And the lady smelt nice – all cinnamon, like an inhaled breath from the spice stall at the Lammas Market. But he was still frightened. Like all vivid, colourful things in nature, she seemed to somehow crackle with a sort of dangerous restlessness, like the pacing of a tigress, and in the closed space of the cavernous boat that seemed impossibly intimidating. And he didn't understand – not really. Not then.

'Me fall,' he said plaintively, in the reproachful voice only small children possess. 'Me get lost.'

'Aie, you'se get lost, alright!' The lady sounded positively delighted. 'No' a night to get lost, boy chi'le. Like a l'il starling, aren't you'se? All small an' rumplied up.You'se good, though.' She bent her head, staring at him with detached curiosity. 'Tell me, boy chi'le. You'se sceered of me?'

Davy shook his small head, puzzled. 'No…' he said doubtfully.

'See? You'se good. Ain't one o' d'ose fisherman out there ain't afraid o' me, you knows dat? Not one.' She spoke with a bizarre pride in her voice – perhaps a little glee, too. But there was also a funny sort of sadness. 'But you'se, li'l chi'le – you'se not sceered o' me. You'se know who'se I am?'

'Ess.' Davy said firmly, without having the faintest idea.

'Oh?' A guarded look came into the wide-set amber eyes. 'You'se tell me then, li'l starling. Who'se am I?'

Davy's face set into a small, crumpled little scowl; his customary look when thinking very hard about something. It would grow less endearing as he grew older. Besides, he didn't know anything about the pretty lady at all…

'Ye… ye… y'are…' he pushed out his bottom lip, truculently. 'King o' Norroway's daughter?'

It was the furthest place he could imagine. It was of course taken from 'Sir Patrick Spens' – everything was, and would be, for most of Jones' haphazard childhood with its ups and downs. But it made the pretty lady explode into a loud shout of laughter.

'You'se – you'se – you'se got dat right, pretty chi'le,' she chortled, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. 'King of Norroway's daughter, hah! Dat's a good one!' She looked thoughtful, sitting back upon her haunches with an abstracted air. 'Ain't no-one done flatter Calypso like dat for a long time. Long, long time, li'l starling. Me _like_ you'se. You'se stubborn as a donkey, but you'se got sense in dat li'l woolly head o' yours. For all you'se mammy lookin' for you'se and t'inking you'se dead an' gone to Calypso, hmm? You'se done gone to me alright – jest not in de way _she_ t'inks.'

'Me deid?!' Panic flared in the huge blue eyes. Davy had managed to sift that much from her funny talking to herself, and the tears were threatening to flow. 'Mamma thinks Davy deid! I dinnae wantae be deid!!!'

Too late, Calypso realized her error, and crawled forward, belatedly trying to rock her terrified charge. 'Now, now, she won't t'ink dat way for long, l'il starling… You'se t'ink you'se dead? No' by a long, long way. Calypso catch you'se before anyt'ing bad happen to you'se! She look out for you'se, promise. 'Sides, ain't you'se time to die. Here…' She fumbled with a small leather reticule that dangled from her waist, untying the crimson string that held it closed. 'You'se need me to prove it to you'se? I'se read you'se future.'

Jones' sobs stopped immediately in horrified fascination.

Witchcraft was decried in the small village kirk, and decried with a zeal that rooted the small children of the village where they sat with their fear of hellfire. Protestantism was something of a new religion, as was the cold Calvinism that chilled young Jones' soul, and the perpetual, dull knowledge; that whatever you did, you were damned anyway. Unless you were one of the Elect, of course, but the minister had been very firm on that in his sermons; everyone in the village was damned. But you were _especially_ damned if you practiced witchcraft. All manner of horrible things blighted you if you did, or if you even consorted with witches, or…

However, the minister had made a fatal error: he'd made witchcraft sufficiently interesting for Jones, even at three, to consider he wouldn't mind being burnt alive that much – since it was going to happen anyway. It hushed him at once, the actual prospect of having magic done as a gift _for _him. Calypso grinned, a white melon-slice of a smile, and pulled from the pouch a handful of dried crab claws, that rattled like the empty husks of seed-pods. Murmuring something undeterminable in a strange tongue that sounded like the steady drum of the raindrops, she paused, and shook the claws like the wicked click of a dice-box… For one moment she paused, hand dramatically outstretched, and then with a frown of concentration – cast her throw onto the damp sand.

Jones stared in wonder, one finger thoughtfully in his mouth as he stared speculatively at the fallen crab claws. They meant nothing to him; one had fallen wide, bouncing off the rotten side of the boat to land wide of the mark in a damp puddle in the rain, and another had half- buried itself in the sand from the impact. It looked messy, like scattered toys…

But a long, ragged, indrawn breath from the pretty lady showed him that it obviously meant something more to her than it did to him. Her eyes widened, huge in her head, and she stared at him.

Davy didn't like the stare. It was horrified, filled with a sort of terrified curiosity, a kind of dawning surmise, and…a sort of sharp edge that hadn't been there before. Like resentment, or something close to it.

'You'se been foolin' wi'd me, boy?' she said sharply. 'You'se some immortal in disguise? One o' de old ones?'

Jones' puzzled look, like an abashed puppy, soon robbed her of that illusion. Immortals don't take the form of children; it renders them too close to helplessness, an emotion no immortal ever cares to explore.

'D'en what d'is life-line mean?' Calypso demanded, under her breath. 'Look at it! Goes on longer d'en de mortal lifespan… long, long time. You'se goin' to be _old,_ boy. **Very** old, when you'se go.'

Jonesy looked hopeful. 'Ten?' It was the largest number he could count up to.

Calypso's braids snapped back as she threw back her head and laughed, a short, sharp bark of a laugh that had little amusement in it. It was like the shriek of a tamarind monkey. 'Bit bigger d'en that, bit bigger d'en that, l'il starling. You'se live to see nearly t'ree centuries come and go – t'ree hundred years, if dat means anything to you'se.'

It didn't.

'Well, it'll mean somet'ing one day. You'se either blessed, li'l starling, or…' Calypso looked down. 'Well, we'se see. Dat one, d'ere, means you'se live on de sea. An'… you'se get to be a captain, one day.' She looked delighted. 'Well done! Dat's somet'ing for a l'il starling. And you'se be a bonny t'ing too – very-'

Another gasp from the lady; a little sharper this time, and more horrified – as though she had read something she did not like in the crab claw that had buried itself in the earth, the pincer pointing directly at the goddess herself…

'No!' Calypso clawed at her face, rearing back from Jones – who began to wail again, frightened by her fear. 'No' dat! I- I'se no' see dat! Gods forbid you'se do dat, l'il one! '

'Davy bad?' Jones said, in a small, trembling voice. The future did not look quite bright and excitingly wicked as it had before. Boys who were bad went to a bad place.

Calypso collected herself; with an effort, and seemed only to drag her thoughts from whatever wild place they dwelt in by remembering how small the child in front of her was, and how long a way it was down to his pudding-face and blue-glass eyes, that living china-doll child.

'You'se…? Bah! Dat not'ing you'se need worry about yet, li'l starling.' She said airily, taking her hands from her face and patting Jones' head. 'You'se git older 'fore I explain dat to you'se. But dat pattern tell me you'se goin' to suffer… at de hands of an immortal, too.' Calypso felt a pang of indignant rage. Of course, the crab claws told her nothing of who, or what, the small child in front of her was going to suffer from, but the thought of any of the old gods plaguing such a small bundle of nerves brought out her temper. He was a piccaninny, a small sweet thing scarcely out of his mother's skirts.

That reminded her of the desperate search out there in the dark. She could sense the mother's despair like a knife-edge – sharp and unpitying towards herself. It was time to let him go.

'Now, now-' she said soothingly, holding out her arms. For all the hiccoughing and tears the shock had worn the little boy to the point of weariness, and he was drooping like a wilting dandelion. 'You'se be 'kay. Calypso take care o' you'se, l'il one, li'l bird… an' it all be a dream. A nice, wonderful dream, an' when you'se wake up, you'se only remember de nice bits, an' Calypso keeps a weather eye on you'se. She not let de gods get d'ere claws into you, see? De sea takes care o' it's own, and you'se as good as one of my chi'llun. If I had any.'

Jones' small pink fist had closed convulsively on her orange skirts as she gathered him into her lap, rocking him vaguely. It didn't even take a sleeping spell to let him drift into oblivion; the tears had done their work. It had even, strange though it was, stirred vaguely maternal feelings within Calypso, who was as shifting and fickle a goddess as you could envisage; not a mother goddess at all. Nothing could account for that at all.

Davy forgot her name, only discovering it, years later – under rather different circumstances, when fairy mothers were a thing long dead and buried under the shifting sands of age. But it never mattered. She was always, ever and always, the pretty lady.

Ned, for all his thirteen years, had his doubts. But he was too kindly to say, and Jonesy was too vitriolic to listen.


	4. Jenny does Sit Feeding

Of course, one cannot be always brooding on mysterious fairy godmothers. And Jones was growing rather big to be so pre-occupied. There were more exciting things to think about; imaginary countries to conquer with Ned, play-fights, pretend battles and (it has to be admitted) rather frequent arguments. Jonesy had as much tact as a proverbial bull in a china shop, and the worst of it was, even if he'd given the offence, he often beat the outraged boy in question. It was the way he fought. No one likes to argue with someone whose preferred method of fighting is with teeth, fists, feet, and, if very unlucky, Jonesy's head. Ned didn't argue much, though. Having your head repeatedly smashed into the deck can do that to you – and Jones as a friend was far better than Jones as an enemy.

The only people Jonesy couldn't argue with were Wyvern and Squint-Eyed Joshy.

We must take a few moments to sketch out Squint-Eyed Joshy first, as Jonesy's childhood nemesis and sworn enemy. Any villain he and Ned played always imitated Joshy's swooping sarcasm, his cold, clipped, Eton-educated English that sat smugly on his sentences and made a simple command sound like a drawling sneer.

Joshua Clement St-John was his full name. At sixteen he was already hopefully jockeying for a position in the Navy proper; as a lieutenant, perhaps, once he bout a commission from home. He had relatives in the Admiralty office, it was rumoured. That was why he had such a comfortable post as midshipman; he hadn't had to study, or work for it. He'd just had to _ask. _He had cold, pale blue eyes that glinted like a blonde crocodile's below his cockaded hat – watching, waiting. And he was the bane of the powder monkey's lives, because he was bored, and making people's lives a misery was, for now, what he _did_.

Jonesy was already disposed to cordially loathe him for being as viciously upper class English as he could manage. Even had Joshua been the most amiable creature in the world, the resentment curdled by that unknown destruction of his past had soured Davy irrevocably where English gentlemen were concerned. But as it was…

'By God, a peat-bog cur! What is it, Bonny Prince Charlie? A clamouring Jacobite dog, is it? Get back to your herrings! And – I'm _talking_ to you, Jock-'

This was normally coupled by a bone-splintering push of one hand, forcing Jonesy to his knees, so all he could see were the eyes staring boredly out from Joshy's narrow, pale weasel-face. 'Let me so much as see you look at me like that again, and I'll damn well make you _eat_ my boots as well as polish them. Do we understand each other?'

Jonesy had nodded, reluctantly, at the time. What else was there to do? But later, in the safety of the messroom with only Wyvern and Ned for company, he had exploded.

'You can't do nothing, y'know,' Wyvern had said tiredly. 'He's _midshipman_, Jonesy. An officer. That's why I wanted yer ter get a bit o' education. Once you move up to being above 'im, you'll be away from bastards like that. You could make loblolly boy, if you're smart. Maybe lieutenant in a merchant way…'

'I dinnae WANT tae be lieutenant!' Jonesy howled. 'I'm goin' tae be Captain, one day, and then we'll see whae's kneeling _then_…'

'Oh yeah? When the moon turns to green cheese, an' all.' Wyvern said calmly, utterly unmoved by Jonesy's hysteria. 'Look, Jonesy, yer're as likely ter make Captain as I am, as you are. Even if you became… oh, I dunno – the most brilliant of the best, without a bit of education and a smidgeon of Latin you're nothing to the Navy. Only way you get anythin' else is outside the law, an'…'

Jonesy scrubbed his dirty sleeve furiously over his face. 'An' then whae?'

'Hangin', generally. Dancing the Tyburn Morris.'

'Bet Joshy goes that way,' Ned said sulkily. 'He elbowed me in the face 'cause I wouldn't try and nab some of the quartermaster's baccy for him. Well, said I wouldn't. Don't pay to be brave with him. On your own, that is.'

Wyvern looked at them both severely. 'Don't you go gettin' any ideas now! Jonesy – are you listenin' to me?'

Davy was staring fixedly at the wall, mustering something unintelligible under his breath. 'We'll see who he calls Davy dumplin' when I get tae be –'

'Jonesy!' Wyvern cuffed his protégé's head roughly to get his attention. 'You listen to me when I'm talking to you! Now – both of you, if I hear any nonsense about you tryin' to tackle him together, I'll raise my hand to both of you, and that's a promise! You've got enough to do hidin' that bloody thing in the bilges without getting Joshy's back up. He'll be moving on soon. Once he's gone you can crow all you like.'

'Nae the same.' Jonesy looked up, with an accusing glance at Wyvern. 'Ye knae it's nae the same, Wyvern. Ye saw whae he did tae Mealy because he stuttered-'

'You saw what happened to Mealy when he talked back smart, Jonesy. You want to have your skin flayed, no business of mine.' Wyvern said coldly. 'But I won't hear a word more of it, you understand? Little better 'n mutiny, and we could all be dancing the Tyburn Morris for that one. Understand? Let it lie. Wait.'

'But-'

'He's too big a fish, Jonesy.' Ned said dully, catching Wyvern's meaning in the anxious, wrinkled face. 'That's what he's saying. We're sprats, is all.'

'No we're bluidy well not!'

'Watch your language!' Wyvern said sharply. 'Boys that swear go to a bad place!'

'Ye can't frighten me wi' that any muir,' Jonesy said recklessly. 'I'm nae a sprat – I'm goin' tae be a Captain when I grow up! The Pretty Lady told me!'

'Oh yes. Your Christmas Fairy.' Wyvern said wearily. 'For God's sake, when did you last see your Pretty Lady, Jonesy? Three years ago? Doesn't that make you think she might not have ever been there at all? Why, she doesn't even have a name!'

'Yes she DOES!!!'

Ned winced. 'Don't.' he begged. 'Wyvern, don't. Jonesy gets awful mad when you mention that. Please, Wyvern…'

'She has a name! She has, she has, she has! Ye're as bad as Joshy! Ye think I'm a liar!'

'She got a name then?' Wyvern folded his arms, an odd gleam in his eye. 'There are odd things in these waters, Jonesy. You'll tell me – what's her name? What's your pretty lady's name?'

Jonesy went quiet. Frighteningly so for Ned, who was nervously testing a discarded belaying-pin in case he had to break up a fight. But Wyvern knew the boy; another moment and-

The small shoulders slumped inwards. Jonesy had given in.

'It's… somethin' beginnin' with a C,' h said, blankly. 'Dinnae really… it sounded sorta… pretty. Foreign. I dinnae knae…'

'Try an' remember.' Wyvern said coolly. 'Now.'

Jones' face curdled into an agony of indecision. 'I cannae really say. Whae if she doesnae come because I've told ye whae her name is?' he said worriedly. 'C-Ca…'

'Catherine? Catrin?' Wyvern suggested. 'Carrie? Cassandra?'

'Cal…Calee…' The words came reluctantly from Jonesy.

'Callie?' Ned said, puzzled. 'That's pretty, but...'

'Nae! There's more, there's more!' Jonesy said urgently, trying to remember. 'There is! Callieee…' he dragged it out, trying to remember the last part. 'Calisto or somethin'… '

A small gasp from Wyvern. Both Jonesy and Ned turned curiously towards him; but they must have been mistaken. Wyvern seemed to be staring fixedly at the galley fire, his face averted as though he was hardly paying attention to either of them.

'Not… Calypso, was it?' he enquired, his voice casual. It very nearly completely disguised the tremble in it. 'That wasn't the name, was it Davy boy?'

Jones' face broke into a scarcely believing, awed look. 'Ye knae her?!'

'Of her. Know of her.' Wyvern said levelly. 'Oh yes, I've heard of _Calypso_, alright. And she's your pretty lady, is she?'

'Oh, yes!' The thunderclouds fled from 'Davy boy's' spoon-shaped face as if by magic. 'She's the bestest, bestest pretty lady ever! An' she's goin' tae come wi' me and Ned when we're grown up and be our mammy! Isnae she, Ned?'

Ned shuffled his boots, suddenly aware of Wyvern's gaze boring into his skull. 'Something like that…' he mumbled, embarrassedly. 'When we're grown up.'

Perhaps all lonely boy-children dream of kindly mother-figures, but only a very few dream of mothers quite like Calypso. A very, very few. Wyvern hardly knew whether the boy was cracked, blessed, or eternally damned, but as he opened his mouth to cry out a tirade of old superstitions, the_ real _rumours about her to Jonesy – he saw the sad, almost pleading look in the electric, bright-blue eye. And closed his mouth again. The 'pretty lady' was his dream, wasn't she?

But God, being chosen by the sea like that… Wyvern thought of Jenny, who was now swimming around a small rum cask, having outgrown her jar, and shuddered. What had he done? How had Jonesy, poor mite, ended up exposed to this? Was there any way to save him? Wyvern hardly knew _what _from; his thoughts swung wildly from one point to the next. But it explained the unnatural nature of the beast, and Jonesy… and Jonesy's _strangeness_. It was only to be expected, Wyvern supposed. Dabbling in the affairs of goddesses. But then again, if Jonesy was in danger…

There was only one way to tell. And the worst of it was, Wyvern was terrified of taking the only course that might help to protect Jonesy from the danger…

'No!'

'For God's sake, this is important!'

Wyvern knew only one man aboard the Dunfermline who had had dealings with… with **Them**. Jenks was supposedly straight, for all the P, with its tight, pale-pink skin where the brand had left its mark on his forehead. Jenks, however, was twitchy as a rodent, and his eyes rolled back in his head when Wyvern hissed out a few tentative questions.

'Never on this earth, Wyvern! I ain't goin' back there!' he breathed, shaking his head. 'I'm straight, I tell yer! I'm straight! I risked hangin' once before and I ain't of a mind to do it again! ' He peered suspiciously at Wyvern. 'Why'd you want to know, anyway? What've you got to do with **Them** for?' He grinned. 'Thinking of turnin' pirate, Wyvern?'

'Don't be a bloody fool!' Wyvern hissed low and venomous. 'I'm askin', man, because one o' the little lads thinks he saw _Her_, and of the two of 'em I'd take **Them** any day! You understand? The whole ship could be in danger!'

Jenk's face went white. 'We're comin' into Kingston now, though…' he said, through pinched lips. 'We're near land, ain't we? _She_ can't get at us…'

'We'll have to go out again sometime, won't we? And she'll get at the poor little mite.' Wyvern said grimly. 'Seen Her three times already.'

Jenks looked up. 'Ah, I get it. It's that Jonah of a Jacobite boy ain't it? Jonesy. The little runt. There's an easy way to deal with that, Wyvern. What always happens to Jonahs…'

'We ain't killin' him!' Wyvern said sharply. 'You give me the sign, Jenks. Come on, I _know_ you have it.'

'You ain't pirate. You know what **They **do to swabs who find Shipwreck Cove? Who ain't part of the Court?'

'I don't care. They'll listen ter me if I tell 'em about _Her._ And what _She's_ given the boy…'

The conversation might have lasted hours; Jenks was a weasel who only served himself. But anything else Wyvern might have said was drowned in a horrible, high-pitched scream from below…

It shattered Jenk's nerve. 'Here!' he hissed, terrified. 'I'll give it yer, I'll give it yer! _She's_ started already!'

He thrust into Wyvern's hand a scrap of pasteboard. At first glance it looked like a playing card, bent and mildewed by age. But it was no card that you'd ever see in anything other than the Devil's pack – a picture of a leering skeleton holding a pitchfork danced on a blood-red background. On the other side was a few scrawled co-ordinates.

Wyvern smiled, grimly. It was what he'd been bargaining for. But the screams had mounted in pitch, and amongst them was a small, shrill little voice from the Hebrides…

'Kill him! Kill him!'

'Jonesy! Let him go!'

'Nae way on this earth! He deserves it!'

'Get the – _the thing_ off him!'

'Jenny's doing whae she does best! Go on! Kill him! Poke his eyes out! Drain the bluid frae him!'

'It's _murder_!'

'I dinnae _care_!'

A little explanation is needed here. Jonesy had not been idle whilst Wyvern was away. Or rather, he had not been nearly idle enough to notice Joshy's stealthy approach. He and Ned had been seriously kneeling next to Jenny's rum cask, playing at dropping in pieces of steak. It was pilfered steak, intended for the captain's delicate stomach, but Ned had swiped a bit, and Jenny ate anything you put into the cask. She was grown quite fat now; although she was not a bit complacent. Her beady brown eyes stared out at the world with every bit as much cephalopodan malevolence as she had had when she was a mewling tadpole of a thing. Jonesy liked the noises she made. They were vaguely kitten-like; if kittens were rubbery and made organically unpleasant noises like a pit full of bubbling slime when content.

Joshy disliked Davy on principle for being small and Scottish. That was the basis of his tormenting. And finding out about 'Jenny' was a delight for any opportunistic bully.

'Oh dear. Dearie, dearie me.' He drawled. 'What have _you_ done?'

Ned went chalk-white. 'Jonesy…'

Davy didn't move. He sat stonily by his cask, staring fixedly at Jenny swimming peaceably around, and clamped his mouth shut.

'Talking to you, Davy Dumpling!' Joshy kicked him, casually, in the stomach, and then nudged him sideways with a prod of his boot. 'What is that? No – I don't need to ask, do I? A disgusting slimy thing for a little slug of a Jacobite. Like it, do you? Fattening it up for Christmas? I expect you people eat whatever you can dig up from under rocks. Davy, Davy dumpling, boil him in a pot!'

Jonesy's mouth thinned into a thin pink slit. He still said nothing. And perhaps Joshy might have simply kicked over the rum-cask and had done with it. But by bad luck, the words of the mocking song suggested something evil that made the corners of his arrogant English mouth turn up in anticipation.

'It's fat enough now, isn't it?' he said, almost pleasantly – then viciously seized the rum cask from the floor, throwing it about so the water slopped out. 'What a good idea! Aren't you a little bit… hungry, eh Jock? Why don't we… boil your little slug-pet in a pot?'

That brought life into Jones' electric blue eyes. 'Nae!' he squealed, horrified, jumping up from his knees. 'Joshy-'

'Ah, you agree! Sugar it and butter it and eat it while it's hot!' Joshy was already strolling casually towards the galley, tipping the cask towards the cook's pot. 'We can soon build up the fire, Dumpling. Think it'll scream as it cooks?'

'Joshy, that's not fair!' Ned wailed, running forward with clenched fists. 'That's not fair!'

'So? Who said anything was _fair?_ I'm stuck here on this bog-hole of a ship, with muck-rakers like you. Life isn't _fair._ You're going to watch it _burn_, Jonesy. And that'll teach you to go howling to the men. Won't it? And then you're going to _eat _your little pet-'

Too far. Ned had seen a muscle twitch beneath Jonesy's eye a fraction of a second before he leapt like a tiger, all fists and feet, towards Joshy. Jenny must have already felt the heat from the cooking pot a few inches from her cask; she was squealing unhappily at the change in temperature.

Perhaps Joshy didn't think a penny-sized thing like Jonesy could hurt him; or perhaps it was just the shock of Jonesy doing something so stupid; but whatever it was, he froze as Jonesy jumped towards him and fell through the air screaming…

The collision was awful. Ned felt the dull thud of them hit the deck as Jones and Joshy sprawled backwards, Joshy's fine coat landing in the muck of the ash-heap from the fire. He rose covered in ashes, cracking his knuckles with the air of a contemplative Lucifer.

'You're going to pay for that-'

'Agh!' Jonesy had punched him squarely in the jaw, with a shriek of effort, and Joshy stumbled- but with enough time to seize a fistful of Davy's hair and haul on it viciously, so they collapsed together into an outright brawl.

Ned was horrified. On one hand, Davy was grimly holding his own, despite being half Joshy's size. But Joshy was quickly gaining the upper hand, smashing Jones against the deck as though trying to leave nothing but a smear to show where he's been…

Ned was frightened of Joshy. But when it came to it…

'Let him go, you bastard!' Ned flung himself in, only to be knocked aside by a well-placed elbow. 'Leave him alone! You… watch out!'

Jenny had not been idle, either. Her rum cask had been knocked to the floor, the water was all running out, and Jenny, whilst still damp, was hot, irate, and bewildered. And a bewildered Kraken quickly becomes an angry one. Kraken's don't have ears, you see, although they are something like the bats of the ocean. They sense things by vibration. Jenny could tell where her Master was; and by the agitated movements of the air, the Master was in trouble…

Jenny reacted in the only way she knew how.

'Kill him! Kill him!'

'Jonesy! Let him go!'

'Nae way on this earth! He deserves it!'

'Get the – _the thing_ off him!'

'Jenny's doing whae she does best! Go on! Kill him! Poke his eyes out! Drain the bluid frae him!'

'It's _murder_!'

'I dinnae _care_!'

Jenny had slithered onto Joshy's face and stayed there.

When Wyvern got there, Joshy was twitching in what looked horribly like final death throes, and Jonesy, oblivious to any of the awful tell-tale signs (or perhaps, which was worse, unrepentantly glad Joshy looked to be dying) was nudging him with the toe of his shoe. Ned had turned faintly green.

'We didn't mean to-' he said, in the voice of a sleepwalker. 'We didn't mean to-'

'Mean to!'

Wyvern lashed out at the thing, sitting so smugly there, swollen purple and pulsing with an air of sly triumph. Davy let out a shrill cry of reproach; it was almost a form of betrayal, Wyvern trying to kick Jenny…

Jenny recoiled, hissing, and slithered reluctantly from the boy's head. _Very _reluctantly.

Ned saw the mess that was left first. The green colour paled, going chalk-white; trembling, he made a dash for the latrine bucket.

He almost made it. That added a fresh element of nightmare to the scene - that awful sound of retching.

Jonesy's face also went slightly green, around the edges. But that, and a slight trembling of his fingers, was the only sign that what had once been Joshua Clement St John's face affected him at all. Jenny was squirming round his feet, keening; the short, sharp squeaks of a small animal wanting to be coddled. He picked her up without a word and stared at Wyvern.

'He deid?'

Wyvern edged closer, stomach churning. Joshy's face was black. Completely black, all over, as though someone had exchanged his head for a black pudding. Mercifully, he still had his eyes; Wyvern had at first feared that the creature had eaten them. One blue eye squinted from a face so shiny and tight it seemed the very blackened skin might explode beneath the pressure if he tried to speak. There were livid purple ring marks, quickly turning black, on his neck. But the face seemed wrong, awful in another way…

'What have you done, Davy boy?' Wyvern moaned, clutching his grizzled head between his hands. 'Murder! Look at him! Look at him!!!'

Joshy had no nose. Jenny's circle of needle sharp teeth had closed on that. All that was left was a torn lump of flesh, shorn cleanly as though with a blade, so all there was were two awful violet holes in the centre of something that had, once, perhaps been human.

Jonesy didn't want to look. He squeezed his eyes shut, rocking Jenny, and turned his face away. 'He tried tae kill Jenny, Wyvern.' He said, in a voice the size of a mouse. 'He tried tae kill Jenny…'

'Well, Jenny did a better job when she tried to kill _him, _**didn't **she?' There was a circle of appalled bearded faces appearing now. Only a matter of time before the captain came down huffing and blowing like an irritated walrus. Wyvern spoke grimly. 'You could be hung for this. If he dies… let alone if he don't.' Joshy's pupils dilated. Choking back a cry that seemed to split the corners of his mouth, he tried to rise from the floor. 'God's bones, the boy's alive!'

Jenks' face was an awful picture. 'That's a Kraken!!!' he said, in a shaky whisper. 'The sea-devil's own sign! Her creature! That's _her_, Wyvern! That's _her_!'

A ripple of superstitious mutters went through the silent crowd. Wyvern abstractedly tried to raise Joshy, wincing under the boy's lolling weight. 'There, boy, there…For Christ's sake, someone help, can't you?' he snarled.

A burly swab shame-facedly helped Wyvern away, and out of the circle. It was just Jonesy and Ned now, in the middle of a deadly silence. The ring of faces was as blank as a sheet of steel; nothing escaped it.

Jonesy looked pathetically small in the middle of it, frantically rocking his small pet. He was murmuring something shrilly under his breath that sounded very much like 'Sir Patrick Spens'.

'We didn't mean tae,' he said forlornly. 'Jenny didnae mean tae. It was my fault, nae hers…'

'Mhmm…? What is the… mhmm… meaning of this?'

Ned crawled over from the latrine bucket, pulling off his cap with weak fingers. The mumbling meant only one thing; the arrival of 'Ninny' Nicholson.

Now, Captain Nicholson was not a _bad_ man. Not spectacularly good, especially when it came to dodging certain regulations that the Excise-men set regarding brandy and the like, and its taxes. But on the whole a mild-mannered, reasonable man, with a weakness for cheap gin and expensively dressed mutton, and a developing podgy stomach. Not, on the whole, very well equipped to deal with the matter in hand.

Jonesy looked upwards into a face pouched with fat and slightly bleary from drink, and curled inwards, almost, defensively. Like a little snail into his shell. 'Ninny' Nicholson was 'small'. Not 'skeely' at all, with his ghost of an apothecary who followed him like an emaciated fanatic, forever measuring out powders and physics and potions. Captains didn't get sick, or tired. They didn't in a perfect world.

Ned heroically tried to explain before his 'captain' said something incriminating. Loyalty to Davy came first before all things.

'Itwasn'tJones'faultsir –itwasmineandMisterClementStJohnstartedtroublefirst –' Ned sucked in a great breath to carry on-

'Mr … Maccus! Mhmm… that will do… sir!' Nicholson frowned at the pale freckled face. 'Did not….mhmm, mhmm… ask you, boy. Impertinence…mhmm… will not be… mhmm….' A vague look crossed the captain's face.' What's that word again, Carker?'

'Possibly… tolerated, sir?' the physician returned respectfully, although eying Ned with some faint concern. 'I think, sir, with the deepest respect… young Mr Maccus needs some poppy syrup. And Mr Clement St John requires my _urgent_ attention…'

'Oh, to the devil with… mhmm…him!' Nicholson retorted petulantly. 'You're my physician, aren't you? Advise me, man, advise me! Now…where was I, eh what?'

Something in the seven-year old Jones' soul ground its teeth and stamped on the floor. Skeely skippers and adventurers did not lose the thread of conversations and look vacantly around like that. That was the sign of a _small_ captain. A _weak_ captain. A _poor, mean-minded_ little captain.

'It wasnae Maccus.' Davy said bluntly, staring upwards with an air of stoic defiance. 'It was me. I did it. Are ye goin' tae hang me now?'

Nicholson's eyes popped. 'Are you …mhmm…addressing me…. _Boy?! _I could mhmm…mhmf…have you **hanged** for just speaking to me with such studied _insolence_. Eh, Carker?'

'I… what, sir?' Carker's eyes had snagged on the thing in Jones' arms. He stared at it greedily. 'My… God! Where did you get _that,_ boy?'

Davy looked down, clutching Jenny a little more defensively. 'Whae, Jenny?'

' It's… it's… do you know what that _is_?' Mr Carker was a pale, tale man, with colourless eyes that looked eerily dead in his thin slash of a face. He appeared to be strangling himself with his own cravat through sheer excitement. 'Genus _Architeuthis_! An immature specimen, clearly, but… Good grief!'

'Whae? Jenny's nae a genie architect-y thing,' Jonesy said uneasily. Affairs were taking an unexpected turn. 'She's my pet-'

'She's a monster!'

There was a ragged chorus of agreement from the crew.

'It's a simple defence mechanism,' Carker retorted, unexpectedly. 'The unfortunate boy clearly threatened the creature's environment, simple as that. The venom is not lethal, and although his wounds are …unfortunate, this is a scientific phenomenon…'

'Creature's got to…mhmmm… go, Carker.' Nicholson wheezed. 'Dangerous, clearly…'

'NO!!!'

'No, sir!' Carker looked almost as devastated as Jones. 'In the interests of the naturalist, sir, I really must protest-!'

'Protest all you…mhmmm…like. Can have it in a…mhmm…pickle jar…if you like.' Nicholson flapped one pudgy hand. 'For your naturalist's society, what-do-you-call-em thing. I…mhmmmf… not interested in the thing…'

'Pickle her!' Davy repeated, shrilly. 'Ye're goin' tae pickle Jenny!'

'You…mhmmf… Mister Jones, are… in deep…waters as it is.' Nicholson coughed irritably into his handkerchief. 'Now, you have two choices; you can let …mhmmf... Mr Carker here pickle your creature, where it will sit in a jar on his desk, or you can kill the thing yourself, mhmmmf. Up to you, boy.'

Carker vanished from the crowd, averting his eyes. Nicholson was a petulant bully. This was more because the attention was not solely focused on himself, for once, and his dratted ailments. The boy was almost _weeping_, poor soul. A naturalist like myself, then, he thought charitably. Poor Highland imp, trapped in his little cycle of poverty…

'I'll do it.' Jonesy said dully. 'I knae her.'

'Please yourself…mhmmmf….' Nicholson coughed theatrically again, and looked about. 'What are you gawking… mhmmf…at, men? We're nearing Kingston soon… Back to work!'

Ned, forgotten in his corner, wobbled weakly over to Jones as the men grumbled away back to their stations, leaving his friend sat blankly on the boards clutching his pet. Jonesy seemed to have sagged sideways as they'd left. No collapse – just a sort of limp melting onto his knees.

'Jonesy?'

Davy was staring at the wall with glassy eyes.

'Jonesy?'

Ned sniffled. 'How you goin' to do it?' he asked, matter-of-factly. 'Cap'n.' Ned retreated into fantasy when the real world became too intrusive. Besides, Jonesy had more than enough childish command to seem like a real Captain.

'He was goin' tae pickle her like an onion…'

'Yeah? But we saved her.' Ned said hopefully. 'Saved Jenny from the apothecary-man and from Jo-' he stopped, abruptly. 'Can't we save her again? Just drop her into the sea and let her go?'

'No!' Jonesy snapped. 'I'm supposed tae look after her! The Pretty Lady _said _I was tae- Oh…'

'Oh?'

A steely look had crossed Jonesy's small round pudding-face, making it suddenly grow hard; all the angles of a seven-year-old head going sharper, more emphasised...

'I got an idea, Ned…'

'Boat loose!'

Wyvern emerged heavy-eyed from the infirmary, rubbing his tired lids. Joshy had been in an awful mess. Carker had managed to take some of the awful blackened swelling out of his face by making a cut, but the sight of the violet venomous pus spurting out would haunt Wyvern for a long time to come. Poor Jonesy, though. He would be devastated. But, in the long run… Calypso would now lose interest in him…

'Boat loose?' he echoed, a horrible feeling stabbing into his stomach.

'Jollyboat gone – ropes must have perished, or…' Jenks looked at Wyvern pityingly. 'There's a couple of lads gone. One of them your daft Scotch one.'

'No!'

'Yes – and you know what'll happen if they're caught. Deserting. This will be a hanging matter now…'


	5. Desertion and Big Hats

It wasn't quite as exciting as the games had persuaded them; deserting. Ned found himself thinking about one fundamental truth; that all the stories had, to put a fine point on it, been made up. They weren't about to stumble on a secret island or some lofty castle on a crag where they could hole up as adventurers. The boat was leaky, too, and it rocked about alarmingly. Not at all what he'd imagined. He pulled miserably at an oar and wished he'd never made friends with Jonesy. At least Jonesy wouldn't have taken him along if he were still smashing Ned's head into the deck…

Or setting Jenny on him. Ned shuddered and pulled harder at the oar. They'd been rowing (or drifting, rather, with an occasional splash) around in what looked suspiciously like circles. Besides, it was a spiteful wish, and disloyal. Jonesy deserved better.

'Where we going then, Cap'n?' he said dutifully. The boat was careering on the waves, and Ned wasn't sure about steering. Something with the rudder, probably…

Jonesy looked both miserable and delighted at the same time. He'd run away, was probably in terrible trouble, had no idea which way they were going – only away from the _Dunfermline_, and that meant out to open sea and _anything_.

But… but… on the other hand, Jonesy was an actual, real _live_ captain! He had his own ship! He had a crew!

Of one, admittedly. Or two, if you counted Jenny, freshly installed in a new cask and squeaking happily to the sound of the oars. Under his badly knitted woollen hat, Davy was grinning like a manic pixie. It was just like the stories.

'We are goin', Mr Maccus,' he said, with childish gravity, 'That way.' He waved a hand vaguely at the expanse of sea. 'Out there.'

'Out there?!' Ned dropped an oar and swore. 'Jonesy, there's nothing out _there_. It's just sea and stuff. We should go to Kingston and find another ship that'll take us…'

'No. We'se going tae the Pretty Lady,' Jonesy said obstinately. 'An' she's… she's… that way. I think…'

'Jonesy-'

'It's _Captain_ Jones tae ye now,' Jonesy said smugly. 'I'm wearin' the hat.'

'Wearing a hat doesn't make you Captain.' Ned said accusingly. 'Sides, how come you get to be Captain? You said Captains had to be tall.' Ned looked Jonesy up and down. 'I'm bigger n' you.'

'Ye're first mate! Ye get to go on adventures! And steer!'

'Don't get the hat, though.' Ned said sulkily. 'I just get a poxy scarf…'

'That's _mutiny_,' Jonesy said triumphantly, small blue eyes glowing. 'Ye get whipped frae that. And thrown in the brig…'

'There is no brig, Davy! It's a rowing boat! A small, poxy, leaky rowing-boat, and – Jonesy, did you even bring any _supplies?_'

'Ye've got tae call me Captain!'

'Don't!'

'Do too!'

'I'll hit you with an oar, Jonesy! _Did you bring any food?!_

Jonesy looked horribly sulky. 'I'm nae stupid,' he muttered, offended. 'I brought _lots_ o' stuff.'

'Lots of stuff' was mostly bits of raw beef, greying at the edges and attracting a lot of flies. 'Jenny needs feedin' too, ye knae.'

'But us! What about _us,_ Jonesy?' Ned was practically howling. 'We're goin' to starve out here without food and water! You go mad first! And see lots of strange things that man shouldn't wot of...'

'Wot of?'

'Know about!'

'I've got auld Joshy's brandy flask…' Jonesy looked down. He was still faintly ashamed about what had happened to Joshy.

Ned stopped staring desperately back at the faint speck on the horizon that was the Dunfermline. 'Brandy?'

'Well, ye said that heroes only drink brandy…' Jonesy gingerly took a sip and spluttered, his eyes watering.

'What's it like?' Ned said hopefully. 'Is it…arrgh! Ugh… that's brandy?'

'I thought it would taste like ginger syrup,' Jonesy said plaintively. 'I had some, once.'

'That's awful.' Ned said dully. 'We're going to go mad, Jonesy. Stark ravin' mad. Like in the stories. And then I'll die and loll around like that dead man walking in Blackbeard and the Blood-Gold…if we don't drown first.'

'But…it's goin' tae be like in the stories, isn't it?' Davy looked reproving. 'Cowardy custard. Ye're goin' chicken.'

'We won't get a chance to have adventures, Jonesy!' Ned lurched across the boat. 'If we go back now it might not be as bad-

'NO!'

'Give me the oar! Look, if we can just-'

'Mutineer!'

'Shut UP, Jonesy! I'll hit you with the oar!'

'There's two oars, an' I can hit ye harder!'

'I can knock you out of the boat!'

'Stinking mutineer!'

Ned sagged. He didn't really want this. 'I'm bigger than you!'

'I'm wearin' the hat!' "Captain" Jonesy pushed out his bottom lip truculently. 'I mean it! We're nae goin' back for ever n' ever! We're goin' tae see the pretty lady, an' we'll have lots of adventures on the way, an – an'…'

'End up dead.'

'Ye shut up, Mr Maccus!'

'Shan't!'

'If I hit ye wi' the oar-'

They were still bickering when Wyvern caught up with them.

Wyvern was a sight. Possibly worse, as Ned later said, than any bloodsucking ghost, because of the hard lines of his face – and the way he sculled towards them with a sort of expert inevitability. As though nothing would stop him. His face was grey and set underneath his coarse sailor's cap.

Jonesy sat sulkily at the stern of their leaky rowing boat, still nursing Jenny and her jar. He did not acknowledge Wyvern by so much as a glance, although Ned knew better. He saw the way Davy's shoulders turned inwards, like a small snail withdrawing into its shell.

'Are you _afraid_ of _hanging_, boy?' Wyvern said flatly, resting his bony elbows on the oars. 'Know what it _is_? What it _means_? Because from what I see here, you have a positive death wish.'

'Wvyern-'

'Stay out of this, Ned! You weren't even in hot water till now, you know that? And now you're as good as a deserter. Lost. But _you…'_

Wyvern seemed lost for words to describe the child in front of him. 'Davy boy, what sort of mad sprog are you? To do _this_? Run away?'

Jonesy was nothing more than a ball inside his coat. You could barely see anything but the tip of the badly knitted woolly hat.

'M'sorry, Wyvern…'

'Sorry? _Sorry_? For this?' Wyvern shook his head, bitterly, as though about to make another stinging reproach, and then leaned over, hooking one leg over the side of the boat. The water in the bottom of it made him wince in acute mortification as a seaman.

'Lord, you'd be sunk before you ever reached land!'

'We're nae goin' tae land!'

'Well, you're set to sail _downwards_, Davy boy. Come on, and don't be such a bloody little fool…'

'We can't go back!' Ned wailed piteously. That was unusual, for Ned, normally he was less prone to wailing. The hanging reference had struck home sharp. 'W-we'll be hung and drawn an' quartered and then we'll burn in hell for deserting! Please, _p-please_, Wyvern, can't you just pretend you didn't see us? P-please? Don't take us back!'

'Wyvern sighed. 'You're duffers, both of you.' He said kindly. 'I ain't going to take you back.'

'B-but…'

Jonesy was quicker-witted than Ned. He let out a brief, delighted squeal, and flung himself clumsily at Wyvern. 'Wyvern! Ye're coming too! He's coming too, Ned!'

'There! No need to fuss, there.' Wyvern said gruffly, ruffling Davy's hair with an embarrassed air. 'Let go, now. I'm a damned fool for humouring you, but – it's happen as well. I was planning to take you off myself, Jonesy. Once we got to Kingston. There's a few things that should be straightened out - '

'And he knaes about the pretty lady!' Jonesy cried jubilantly. 'Hell knae which way tae go!'

Wyvern's face set, faintly – there was a slight suspicion that he was grinding his teeth. 'Yes.' He said tightly. 'It's to do with the pretty lady. But we'll have to find people who know … more of her than I do, Jonesy. _Lots_ more than I do.'

'That's alright.' Davy said bluntly, letting go (at last) of Wyvern, to climb back towards Jenny in the stern. 'There's allus a quest in stories, ye know. Wouldnae be right without doin' it. An' ye get three tasks tae do…'

'Exactly.' Wyvern said hollowly. 'Three tasks. You got it exactly right, Jonesy.' He looked round. 'But you're comin' into my boat first. No arguing, Jonesy!' For Davy had opened his mouth in protest. 'We ain't got time for it. The _Dumfernline_ thinks I'm bringing you back, don't they? Well, we got a few minutes at most before they twig I ain't going back to see you hanged.'

Jones closed his mouth again, meekly penitent.

They pushed out the jollyboat to drift in the direction of the _Dumfernline_ – drawing majestically as she was like a beached whale towards the port of Kingston. Wyvern shook his grizzled head when Ned asked if they were heading there too.

'We'd be weaselled out in no time if we land whilst they're there. They'll have the marines out for deserters, even if it is two lads and an old sea-dog like me.' Wyvern bit his lip. 'O' course, we could land further up the coast. Hide out amongst the plantations. But they're worse n' Marines.'

'Hide in a cave!' Jonesy said importantly. 'Until the Dumfernline's gone! An' then get another ship tae where we're goin'.' He stopped, puzzled. 'Where are we goin' anyway, Wyvern?'

'Not far. It's rumoured to be off the coastline here, although – Wyvern swallowed. 'It's only open to them that _knows_ the co-ordinates. No chance of folk stumbling on this place by chance, Davy boy. This is a place touched by the _old_ power. The real power. You don't want to go messing wi' those who have that sort of thing…'

'Magic?' Davy looked as though someone had tumbled some long-awaited gift onto his lap. 'Real magic! Like the Pretty Lady! And you an' Ned an' me are all goin' tae go there? And I can be a proper Captain an' have adventures.' He added, self-importantly.

'What?' Wyvern snorted. 'No you can't. Not here. You have to sit tight and let me do the talking, Jonesy-'

'That's nae fair! If I'm the Captain, I have tae do the talkin'! It's whae they all do!'

'For Gods sake, live in reality, boy! No-one's going to listen to a sprog like you!' Wyvern spoke urgently. 'Unless you grow about six feet in the next few minutes, you ain't goin' to last _more _than a few minutes. Especially if you're rude to the Brethren Court, of all people!'

There arose a faint shriek from 'Mr Maccus', who swayed alarmingly and then fell flat on his face, choking with horror.

'The B-brethren Court!'

Jones remained unimpressed, his small face uncomprehending. 'Oh? Whae's that, then?'

_The B-brethren Court_!' Ned raised a ghastly face to Jonesy's. 'Jonesy – it's _them!_ Blackbeard! Black Sam! Morgan! Bartholomew!'

Jonesy's wide electric blue eyes opened wide. '_Whae?'_ he breathed, looking horrified and fascinated at the same time. 'Really? Ain't they dead?'

'With maggots in their beards and ghastly glowin' eyes and evil deadly grins an'-'

'Stow it, both of you!' Wyvern said, harshly. He was nervous about it as it was without Ned recapping every grim story about Shipwreck Cove as it was. 'You're goin' ter have to trust me on this one. Whether you like it or not. And no, it ain't mutiny, Jonesy – captain's the one who knows how to sail, and has a morsel o' brain in his head. Not some half-wit with a stocking on his head. We'll settle this _gentleman_-like.'

"Gentleman-like" proved to be hiding in a cave, as Jonesy suggested, until after dark, when Wyvern felt it was safe to risk slipping off to a nearby settlement for food – with the little money he had thought to take with him. The Creoles were good, if a little too inquisitive, and this isolated place saw none of the hustle and bustle of Kingston town. Word of the runaways would not have reached them yet. Wyvern fervently thanked God for it, too. He had only the co-ordinates and a pilfered compass to guide him – as well as his somewhat rough knowledge of navigation. Jonesy was as much use as a tin halibut at present, although he had a good head for figures. Could make officer material, Wyvern thought fondly, not for the first time. Poor little scrap, getting so buffeted about so young…It wasn't right. None of it was right, as Wyvern saw it.

Ned was standing nervously on guard with a stick – that, if perhaps you squinted, might distantly bear a resemblance to a rifle. But only if the attacker in question was near blind and preferably lame into the bargain. He heaved a sigh of relief as Wyvern approached.

'I thought you might have been-'

'Yes. Well. So did I.' Wyvern said briefly. 'Jonesy alright?'

'He's asleep.' Ned sounded faintly awed. 'How can he sleep, Wyvern? Through _this?_'

'Ah, you're a sensible lad.' Wyvern said with a wince, as he wearily flung himself to the ground. 'You can think ahead to the consequences, aye? See the rope, the drop-'

'Don't!'

'Just sayin'. Well, Davy boy, you see – he ain't got that capacity o' seeing things like that.' Wyvern sighed. 'All he can see is what he wants to see. What he _wants_ to happen. It's a hard thing that it comes to this, you see. He might have learned a bit of sense if it weren't for his dratted Pretty Lady…'

'He thinks she's his mama, I think,' Ned said glumly, looking over at the small tousled shape of his 'captain.' Jonesy was curled up in a foetal position, arms clutched defensively round the rum cask that held Jenny. Jenny was clearly in an affectionate mood herself; one tentacle was draped lazily over the edge, occasionally twitching in front of Jonesy's nose and making him sneeze in his sleep.

Wyvern groaned. 'That's the trouble,' he whispered, looking quite haunted, for a moment – as though he had forgotten Ned were there at all. 'This ain't meant to happen. And when folks get notions like that in their heads – they're ridin' for a fall. The stories they tell of the Lady Calypso don't concentrate on her being a mama to daft Scotch sprats like Jonesy. They're more about…'

'What?' Ned said anxiously, clutching his 'stick' with evident fright.

Wyvern shook himself, as though to cast off a bad memory. 'What? Oh, nothing. Nothing.' He cast a sharp look at Ned. 'Ever heard of the Odyssey, lad? Famous seafaring tale, that is. Mebbe one day, when you're ready, and Jonesy gets rid of all this nonsense – I'll tell you what they say about Calypso. But until then there's the Brethren Court to decide…'


	6. A Desperate Pass

It took our adventurers a sum total of three weeks to find what they were searching for; and it has to be said that the three weeks did neither of the trio much good – unless one counts Jenny, who grew very complacent and fat in her rum cask, living off pieces of crab claw and small, whiskery things in rock pools. But Jenny has no dialogue, so it is impossible to discover what she thought of it all.The caves were cold, damp, and had it been anywhere but the Carribean, as Wyvern said, 'they'd all have been dead o' pneumonia before the week was out.'

As it was, all they fell prey to was paranoia. Twice the militia came past the small dirt track that led to the beach. Twice Wyvern, Ned, and Jonesy hid in a scarcely-breathing bundle of terror – although Jonesy' fear seemed strongly tempered with rage. It was the early badness of his childhood all over again. His hands were bunched hard on his coat, throttling the faded pea-cloth of the jacket as though it were the neck of an English militiaman. All taut nerves and stone face. Wyvern had to bodily pick him up and hold him to prevent him running out with a mad scream. Little Jones had never been good at quelling his anger, as recent events have, alas, shown.

Ned, on the other hand… was a whimpering wreck. It was not that he was afraid – not so much that. It was just that Ned had a very good imagination, and he could already feel the tightness of the hemp rope they'd hang him with about his throat. He had bravery, but this was frightening, alien – nothing like the choreographed adventures of the games they'd played. He was already acquiring a rather bitter view of adventures. Adventures were only fun when you could decide what happened in them. In adventures where you had to hide and there was a frightening penalty to pay for being caught, or making a mistake – there, there was no fun at all. Adventures became hard, and frightening, and **wrong. **Just like this one.

As it turned out,Wyvern, whether crewman or no, was the _real_ captain of his motley crew of children. It was _Wyvern_ who ventured into the Creole settlements under pretence of being an overseer on a sugar plantation. He listened with anxious ears for gossip,rumours of searches and lynchings and the dim terrors that stalked the fugitives. Just as it was _Wyvern _who ventured out with Ned at the oars and Jonesy huddled in the stern, to work the co-ordinates that shifted wickdly under his eyes and danced on the page.It was proving more trouble than it was worth to find the mysterious Shipwreck Cove.

Shipwreck Cove, it seemed, did not want to be found. And, perhaps, the waves themselves did not want them to go there. Or Jenkins had played a wicked trick on them all, Wyvern reflected bitterly, and betrayed them all to an unwanted life on the run for no reason. Well, good riddance to the pack of them. It wasn't as if anyone lightly sought out the Brethren Court. Wyvern certainly did not want to go there…

'I dinnae think I want tae go there either,' Davy said musingly, one late afternoon as they trooped up the shingle of the bay. Wyvern was dispirited after yet another fruitless search; he had the strongest suspicion they were going about in circles. Ned, I am sorry to say, was rather peevish towards his captain. It was, after all, quite Jonesy's fault. But Davy remained cheerfully oblivious to this. 'Even if they're all deid an' have maggots crawlin' in their beards…'

'What about your Pretty Lady?' Ned said crossly, slumping down onto the sand with an exhausted sigh. 'We're trying to help you find her, you daft gowk.'

Normally, this would have been an excuse for Jonesy to jump upon Ned and have a satisfying fist fight in the sand. But Davy merely shook his dark curled head slowly, as if trying to dispel some grave doubt.

'I dinnae… think she's there,' he said slowly. 'An' I dinnae think she likes the Brethren Court verra much…'

'What makes you say that?'

'I think she told me…'Jones shook his head again, looking a little uneasy. 'I dinnae knae… Only I dinnae think it's a guid place…'

'That's easy to say!' Ned snorted. 'Full of the most evil and scurvily barbarous sea-dogs, ain't it?' Ned had quite a turn of phrase. 'An' drinking an' stealing an' probably womanising-'

'Whae's womanising?'

'Er…' Ned blinked. He had forgotten Jonesy was a good deal younger than he was. Ned wasn't exactly sure himself. 'Dunno. Somethin' pirates do.' He said vaguely. 'Not good, Jonesy. But Wyvern's prepared to take you there. Into Hell and back, too. Must like you a _lot_, Jonesy. You ever thought about that?'

'Whae?' Jonesy said vaguely. 'Oh. Aye. Wyvern's alright.'

'Alright?!'

'He can be quartermaster if he likes,' Jonesy said generously. 'When I'm Captain.'

Ned snorted. 'Mebbe I'll be Captain before you…' he added, goadingly. 'What'd you say to that? If I end up as _Captain_ Maccus…'

'Ye won't.' Jonesy said instantly. 'I asked. She said nay, but ye'll be first mate…'

Ned's blood went cold. He turned his head slowly to look at Davy properly. Little Jonesy blinked back – round eyes like blue marbles, amiable, slightly freckled – a rag doll of a child still. But suddenly quite terrifying to Ned.

'You've _seen_ her?'

Jonesy looked puzzled. He nodded, simply.

'Is she… is she… about right now, Jonesy?'

'Ye can see her if ye like, ye knae. She's always here…'

Ned gulped and shut his eyes. In the absence of any solid information bar that Calypso was a bloodthirsty witch, he had conjured up the image of a cackling old hag with inch-long fingernails and a ghoul-like face spattered with blood. 'M'alright,' he said tightly, still with closed eyes. 'God, Jonesy – you told Wyvern she's here?' Wyvern, Ned knew, would be horrified to learn that despite his best efforts, Davy was still very much on good terms with his 'Pretty Lady.' But Ned couldn't tell. For all the fear and the awful turn events had taken, Ned was still the devoted follower, the loyal sidekick. To rebel now would be like – like watching a piece of his soul shrivel up before his eyes. Besides, whilst it was easy to dislike Jonesy, with his stupid stubborness and a tendency to grind his heels and scowl at the world in general…

Once you fell into the habit of liking him, it was hard to cast off. Turning on Jonesy now would be like kicking a puppy…

Jones looked at Ned, so much older than he was, with something rather like pity . As if Ned was an idiot child, who needed to be kindly informed about the world. 'No,' he said, shaking his head. 'Why? He cannae see her, anyway. She don't want him tae see her. And he don't want tae see her.'

He shuffled to his feet and padded amiably along the stretch of sand, like the child he was – wandering a little aimlessly over the sand, here and there. Ned watched owlishly. It made a twisted, rather simple sort of sense, after all. Wyvern was trying frantically to deny Calypso existed to himself. Ned wasn't sure, either way – only Jonesy had a disconcerting way of smiling up at empty air when he was alone.It made it look _very_ like he was ambling along like a small tug-boat in the wake of something, or someone, else…

Ned shifted, dragging his blistered toes through the sand with a wince, and stood up, ready to head back. He threw a glance over his shoulder as he dusted himself down, ready to call his diminutive leader along –

And froze.

There was _something_ there. Ned had never been entirely sure. Perhaps Jonesy was right, or perhaps he was half-mad, and the whole thing was simply a sign of his childish insanity…

But there was an odd wind tugging at Davy's hair – a curious, capricious wind, for whilst it ruffled Jonesy's, it was completely still about Ned. There was no wind save that that followed Jones. And, if you squinted into the sun with pained eyes, trying to follow the boy – pinpricked out in orange specks that circled and drifted on the air, was the shape of a…

Person. A woman.

There was the faint, haunting scent of cinnamon on the air

Ned didn't stay to see more. Without letting out the whimper that climbed through his throat and threatened to make him shriek, he dug his toes into the soft sand and made a sudden burst of energy towards the caves. This needed Wyvern. Like it or not, he'd have to –

'Wyvern!!'

'Eh?' Wyvern was slumped disconsolately on a rock, every pore leaking discontent. He had thought they were so close... perhaps, after all, even better off than they would have been aboard the Dunfermline. He hadn't dared to think about how the Brethren Court would have dealt with them, but if - a big if – they had listened, then perhaps the dratted threat hanging over the child could be banished, and the poor mite could have had a halfway-normal life. Get learned, become a gentleman, read books, get married, get old... something sedate… 'Get away with you, Ned, for now, hmm? I'm dog-tired, and that bastard island's no closer than it was a week ago. We'll be living off limpets at this rate…'

'But it's important!'

'What?Soldiers?' Wyvern pricked up his ears, fumbling for the fowling piece at his side. It was the only weapon between the three of them, and it was empty. Wyvern didn't quite trust 'Davy-boy' not to shoot someone by accident. 'Where?'

'It's not soldiers!' Ned hissed. 'It's her! You know – the Pretty Lady Calypso!'

'WHAT?'

'I told you it was important!'

'She can't reach us here,' Wyvern sad stupidly, fumbling with the powder-box at his belt and frantically shovelling handfuls of gunpowder into the fowling piece. 'We're on land! She don't own it! She ain't allowed! It's –it's in the _rules!_'

Ned wisely said nothing.

'This isn't – it's not fair!' Wyvern muttered, agitatedly, gathering up a handful of pitiful posessions. 'But I'll fix her – I'll fix her! Get your stuff, Ned-'

'What for?'

'We're leaving! Goin' to the Brethren Court right now!'

'But you said yourself we can't find them! Wyvern, what if we never find them –'

'Oh we will. We will. Provided we've got Davy boy we will.' Wyvern panted, a faintly crazed look in his eye. 'She can't harm us while he's with us, see? If she tried to drown us or blow us out to open sea – she does the same to him. So we're probably never safer than we are now, eh?'

'But Wyvern, we've been out all day –'

'I'll not see her interfering with the poor child!' Wyvern snapped. 'S'truth, Ned Maccus – what do you reckon happens if you mess too much with the otherworld? Go mad, that's what – or worse, one o' them. I ain't seeing it happen to Jonesy. Not in this life!'

He stumbled onto the sand and then, aghast, let out a muffled curse.

'Lords of Hell!'

Jonesy was giggling, somewhere in the distance. The high-pitched, hysterical laughter of a giddy child being allowed to play. Ned didn't see him, at first. He didn't see what had Wyvern so trembling and scared.

Until he saw Jonesy, at last.

Davy was suspended, like a little string puppet, a few feet from the sand. In mid air, and gently swooping about, here and there, like a miniature swallow with a mad tangle of dark curls. Exactly as if he was being swung about in invisible arms. Ned got a vision of the orange specks gathering together, bunching, become solid, and then suddenly Davy was no longer alone, but held in the arms of a laughing, dark-eyed woman. She looked very much as he had described her – still the stitched rags and braided hair, still with the coffee-coloured skin and wild, sensitive face. Like a deer, perhaps. Not a witch. But there was something a little dangerous, a little subtle about the handsome face, that hinted at the nature of what she was. Ned would never have so casually called her the 'Pretty Lady.' No more would Wyvern. He knew more of the stories.

The voices suddenly became audible.

'See? You'se a li'l starlin', boy chi'le! Calypso done miss you, you'se know? Me wonder where you were – dat Jenny been bad- bad?'

'She's nae bad.' Jonesy said stoutly. 'It was Joshy's fault, ye knae. He started it. But things are better now! Ned n' me are friends, and Wyvern's with us, an' – ' He looked up, with a faint suggestion of shyness. 'I'm a Captain now.'

'What?' Calypso laughed, turning round to eye the observers with a challenging gaze. As though she was daring them to challenge her. 'Chi'le, you'se ain't any more a Captain than I am. Dat's nice – for now. But Calypso got plans for you'se, kay? I'se take care o' my own.'

Wyvern let out a strangled squeak.

Davy flicked a slight glance towards the others and then ignored them, as Calypso slowly let him go. He looked a little sad the game had ended so soon. Calypso looked a little disappointed too. 'You'se have to go now,' she said, shrugging her shoulders. 'Dem got plans for you'se too, I'm sure. Besides, I'se have t'ings to do far away. I'se can't stay and play with you all day. You'se get bored o' me then, hmm? You'se goddess-friend?'

'Never 'n ever!' Jonesy said indignantly. 'Never!'

'Dat's nice to hear. Now I'se leave you d'en. Good to know my boy chi'le don't forget me. So many do, you'se know. D'ey forget goddesses ever exist.' There was a genuine note of sorrow in Calypso's voice. 'You'se run along now. Don't look back, an' – maybe we'se see each other soon.'

'When's soon?' Davy asked, a little forlornly.

'Soon's – when you'se next see me again, boy chi'le.'

Her voice was already an echo on the air as the boy shiffled dispiritedly towards Wyvern and Ned.

'She's gone.' He said plaintively. 'Why does she allus go, Wyvern?'

'Good riddance!' Wyvern croaked, hoarsely. 'Let her go!'

'Dinnae say that!' Jonesy's look changed from slight unhappiness to instant fury. 'That's a cruel thing tae say! Don't ye dare say that! She's lovely, an'… an' she takes care o' me!'

'Takes care of you? You call that care, do you? Talking to a poor thing like you, knowing – and then leaving you high and dry in as much trouble as you started off with!' Wyvern said triumphantly. 'If she's good, and she takes care of you, why didn't you ask her to help us find the Brethren Court, eh? Or at least help us away to somewhere where we ain't bein' hunted like rats? You're a smart boy – you could have asked. Why?'

'She- she doesnae help people like that.' Jonesy's face crumpled. 'Ye hae tae help yeself before she helps ye…'

'Really, now? What an act of charity!' Wyvern grew scathing in his fear - and in his concern for his small friend. 'Ever think that's a rather back-handed way of helping people, Jonesy?' He sagged. 'Now, I'm not going to argue with you – you're in trouble. I'm trying to help you, Davy boy. Can't you see that? Can't you understand?'

His withered face set hard, into determined lines. 'But we're either sinkin' or swimming for Shipwreck Cove. Tonight. Things have come to a desperate pass now.I'll do my best to put them right.


	7. Entrance to Shipwreck Cove

It was possibly the very _worst_ sea voyage Wyvern had ever been unlucky enough to take (not counting the time when a whaling ship he had been working was blown off course into the icy wastes of Northern Russia), that day. The hasty departure, half the scanty supplies upset by a clumsier-than-usual Ned, and a wild kick with one scrawny leg from Davy that send most of it tumbling over the side of the jollyboat. He had not taken the plan, or the suggested slight to the Pretty Lady at all well. It took both of them to bundle him kicking - and screaming, too – into the boat, and it took Ned to sit on his 'captain' whilst Wyvern ran bow-legged along the beach, trying to grab the dropped potatoes and lumps of hard biscuit that made up most of their supplies.

'It's… for… your own… good!' Wyvern said, breathlessly, dropping an armful of knobbly potatoes onto the lump of hysterical boy that fought wildly underneath the sackcloth. Ned had taken the bright idea that Jonesy might be quiet if he was covered up, like a budgie, but so far the results were not promising. 'Hold still, Davy boy! And for Gawd's sake, try and gag him,' he said distractedly to Ned, who was wobbling about precariously perched on Jonesy. Neither potatoes nor the dead weight of a gangly adolescent seemed to have quenched him much. 'He'll have the whole of Kingston after us if he keeps on squawkin' and squealin' like that!'

'Ye're… all…BAD!!' came the shrieking voice of Jonesy from beneath the blanket. 'Ye're all evil, an' mutinying, an' I hate ye and despise ye, an'…'

There was a brief squawk. Ned had firmly fixed a large potato in the smaller boy's mouth.

'Argh!'

'What _now_?' Wyvern was grimly manning the oars, pulling with a look of concern at the darkening sky. It was bruise-coloured, brooding – the perfect ripe colour for a tropical storm.

'He bit me!' Ned said indignantly, showing a bleeding finger. 'Jonesy went and bit me!'

'Eh? Well, he's quiet, ain't he? What more do you want?' Wyvern said vaguely, mopping at his sweating brow with his sailor's cap. 'Least he ain't screeching at us like a cage of parakeets anymore…'

Ned glowered, and kicked his potato- gagged captain on the shin. 'Bite me again and I'll stuff your jacket _full _of potatoes,' he said, although without much relish. This wasn't fun any more. 'Wyvern's trying to find the Brethren Court, Jonesy… we'll be all right _then_. Promise!'

Under the blanket, Davy stared balefully upwards and made another savage attempt to kick his way upright. Ned sat down promptly on him. 'I _said_ I promised,' he said reproachfully. On my honour - as a first mate…'

Jonesy's stare would now have melted an iceberg; there was a look of baffled fury in the electric blue eyes that said, Oh really? How long do you think you'll be first mate _now?_

But he fell into a sullen, potato-quenched silence at the bottom of the boat as Wyvern rowed grimly on – neither east, nor west, but straight ahead, grunting with effort. He did not know, or care, where he was going, but the blasted Brethren Court must be somewhere about this wretched isle, and they would find it…

Luckily Ned missed the significance of the despairing glance at the horizon. He was a naturally optimistic boy in many instances.

'Reckon we can work out the co-ordinates from here?' he suggested. 'Perhaps we've not been here before, eh Wyvern?'

'Or we're going round in circles,' Wyvern replied snappishly. 'Don't talk rot, Mr Maccus. Especially not when we could be in the same damn patch of water we've been travelling for the last two damn weeks! Rowing round in circles until we drop – or die of thirst,' he added nastily, throwing a look at the huddled figure of Jonesy. 'Since someone, namin' no names, mind you, thought it was a good idea to kick _everything_ we had overboard…'

Jonesy took the moment of slight freedom to spit the mealy potato out of his mouth and wriggle so his head and shoulder were free of the blanket.

'I'm nae going tae die,' he said matter-of-factly. 'Nae till I'm very auld. An' Maccus is goin' tae be my first mate, so he cannae die either. She said,' he added, smugly. 'Didnae say anything 'bout _ye_, Wyvern. Ye're goin' tae die frae bein' wicked and slimy and bad…'

There was a harsh, choked intake of breath, and a shocked silence, before a pink hand leant down and slapped Jones' face. Hard.

Wyvern was huddled at the end of the boat, suddenly looking a lot smaller than he had ever looked during the hiding and the furtive scuttling in caves…

Davy swelled, went scarlet, and drew in a breath to screech – and suddenly saw it was Ned who was glaring at him with a look of positive dislike, his blotchy pale face quivering. He was massaging his hand as though it still stung.

'Don't you _dare _say a word more like that, Davy Jones,' he hissed, 'I don't care if you get a big boat an' all! You've got no right to be cruel to Wyvern! He looks after us, don't he? Even after we should have been _hanged_!'

Davy shut his mouth carefully again, feeling as though a tone had settled in the bottom of his stomach. 'He started it,' he muttered, aggrieved. 'Shouldnae have called the Pretty Lady names…'

'Hanged, Jonesy! Hanged!'

Jonesy's bottom lip quivered. _'Ye've_ got nae right tae be bad…'

Ned grabbed Jonesy by the scruff of his neck and pulled him out into the sunlight with one pale, scrawny arm, practically throwing the smaller boy towards the other end of the boat. 'I won't be if you say sorry!'

'But-'

'Right this minute, Jonesy! Now!' Ned racked his brains for a sizeable threat. 'Or -or I'll not tell you about the dread curse of Bartholomew, and I'll _never_ be your first mate. You hear me? Ever!'

Jonesy staggered uncertainly, fell down, got up again, looking as if he was about to scramble over the side … and then suddenly threw himself in a tumble of faded pea-jacket and ashen face at Wyvern, bursting into tears with a loud wail. There were spells when Davy behaved as though he was a slightly worse version of Joshy – as though his idea of being grown up was to be as arrogant as possible. But arrogant adults do not tend to need rocking to sleep, tearstained and slightly hysterical, over some fault Wyvern scarcely remembered.

'Funny little thing, ain't he?' Wyvern said fondly, into the cold sea air. It was mortally cold out at night; the air bit at fingers, sang shrilly and painfully in the ear. Ned was clustered close to his friends, wrapped up in the sacking, nursing Jenny's jar on his knee. The creature was asleep, tentacles twitching lazily in dreams, else he'd never have dared to hold the jar. Wyvern was nursing a well wrapped up Jonesy over one shoulder like a baby, vaguely rocking him to the plaintive tune of _Scarborough Fair_. 'When he feels he's in the wrong, you know? Goes all defensive – but pull at his conscience a little and it all comes undone. He's a good boy. Angrier than some, but he's a good boy…' Wyvern's voice trailed into nothingness. Ned nodded, for want of anything better to do. There were some adult emotions he barely understood.

'You like him a lot, Wyvern,' he said, shivering in his wrappings. 'He sort of like… like your boy? Maybe?'

The dark silhouette of Wyvern suddenly went rock-hard against the star pricked sky.

'If you had one?' Ned hastily added. 'I didn't mean anything…'

'What? No. No, I know you didn't, m'boy.' Wyvern said abstractedly, glancing up at the sky for an instant. The sudden stiffness seemed to have vanished as soon as it had come; Wyvern was his normal vague self. 'Just… funny, that's all. Like you read my mind. Never had any chillun I ever knew about, y'know, but…' He glanced down at Jonesy, 'He could be, y'know. Mebbe. I used to know the Dundee coast quite well, when I was, er ah'm…' he glanced embarrassedly sideways at Ned. 'Younger, you might say… not much younger. An' she wasn't a spring chicken herself, but – sometimes she had something of the same – _hardness_, you see. Don't know whether it's the climate, or the hard life scratching a living from the sea. Ain't no easy life at the best of times, and fishermen have funny little rituals up there, God-fearing as they are…She had the same sort of look - as if she knew things you couldn't quite see…'

Wyvern shook himself with a jolt, there. Perhaps he realised how odd it sounded, talking to a scrap of adolescence, all twig-like arms and gangling elbows, about old memories.

'There!' he said awkwardly, breaking off. 'Don't let me run on, boy, eh? He ain't. It's just… well, you know… what _could_ be.'

Ned nodded, not understanding at all, and clutched Jenny's jar closer. 'If you say so…'

Morning brought all three of our heroes a desperate situation, and a chance for resolve – closer than any chance they had had so far.

Food was scarce. Scarcer than it should have been, despite Jonesy's squawking, peevish attempts to rid them of most of their supplies, and it was only when Ned looked down that he discovered that Jenny had crawled out of her jar. After a very short search, Jonesy found his pet gorging on half a potato.

'Ye shouldnae hae done that, Jenny,' he said reproachfully. 'That was bad. Whae are we goin' tae eat now?'

'How much has she actually _eaten_?

'Er…' Jonesy made a pathetic attempt to search through what was clearly an empty bag. 'The guid news is there's lots o' taties…'

'Anything _else_?!'

'Er… No?'

'Dammit!' Wyvern let out a string of colourful oaths that made Jonesy look up interestedly. 'What the _hell_ do you think our chances are out here? I knew it! We're going to die! Just like that bugger in the poem, who shot the albatross …'

Wyvern stopped wistfully. 'Wish there _was_ an albatross. Leastways we'd have a decent meal before dying of terminal potatoes…'

'Wyvern...' Ned spoke hollowly.

'What? Hole in the boat? That's all we need!'

'N-no, not a hole…'

'Is the boom twisted? Lost the potatoes?'

'Wyvern…'

It was Jonesy who ended this fruitless conversation with a bright remark.

'Coo,' he said speculatively, leaning over the side of the boat. 'I never _ever_ seen the sea go like that before. Whae makes it sae _swirly_, Wyvern?'

There are no words to describe the mutual horror of all but Jones as they stared at the horizon. It was indeed 'swirly.' Swirly in the manner of a 'raging, churning whirlpool of terror' swirly, and Wyvern stared wide-eyed at it for all of five seconds, petrified by the sight of the view - downwards. It seemed to be sucking at the surface of the world.

'Drat it,' he said tranquilly, in the calm voice of glassy horror. 'I knew there was one thing I forgot to ask Jenkins about Shipwreck Cove. How you get there without _being_ a shipwreck.'

'It's pretty,' Jonesy said thoughtfully, resting his chin on the side. 'I like it.'

'C-can we do anything?' Ned asked in a whisper. There didn't seem to be anything else to say.

'No. Can't fight the sea like _that_.' Wyvern said dully. 'The currents will carry us into the middle and drown us like rats.'

'It won't!' Davy said indignantly. He looked an odd, outraged little figure, his bottom lip pushed out and the spray dampening his wiry little curls into a wet tousled halo. 'It won't at all, it won't! I asked the Pretty Lady, an' she says it's easy tae get past. It willnae harm us if ye knae the right song…'

Both Ned and Wyvern wheeled round, incredulous.

'**What?!**' Wyvern screamed. Davy shrugged. 'I thought everyone knew there's tasks tae get past. It's nae a proper adventure if ye dinnae hae them…'

'What's the bloody SONG, Jonesy?'

'Er…'

'We're all going to die!!'

'Oh…' Jones took another peek at the maelstrom ahead and frowned with concentration. It did look like it was getting closer, and at such close quarters it looked a little intimidating. 'It was a nice song… '

'We need MORE than that!' Wyvern was wrenching at the tiller so hard the wood was splitting under his hand. He might as well have been trying to make a matchstick hold them against the suction. 'What WAS IT?'

'hmm… mmm..hmm…hum…' Jonesy hummed it under his breath.

'_I Saw Three Ships?'_

'_The Wooing of Matty Groves?'_ Ned supplied desperately.

'_Greensleeves?'_

'_Wreck of the Tempestuous Maid?'_

Wyvern and Ned's replies grew more and more agitated.

'I've ne'er heard o' that one.' Davy said positively, ignoring the urgency of his companions. 'It was about – about Spanish ladies…'

'Thank God!' Wyvern let out a breath. '_Farewell and adieu to ye fair Spanish ladies…'_

'That's it! That's it!' Jonesy lustily joined in, with a shrill voice like a small starling squawking over a fallen crumb. _'Farewell and adieu ye fair la- ladies of Spain…'_

Ned stared at them both as though they were mad. The maelstrom wasn't getting any smaller. 'It's not _doing _anything!!'

'Yes it is!' Jonesy shouted back, the wind whipping his hair into strange shapes. 'We get through the maelstrom intae the Court!'

'What?! Sail through it!!' Wyvern went ashen. 'I can't do that!'

'Pish!' Davy said scornfully, his eyes alight with the banked glow of a thousand tales of derring-do. 'It's an adventure, isnae it? Whae's an adventure wi'out whirlpools an' blood an'… an'… ' his gaze snagged on the vast hole in the ocean. 'It will be alright, won't it Wyvern?'

'Well,' Wyvern yelled above the roaring of the water, 'If it ain't, Davy boy, we're about to find ooooooout…'

The boat tipped, snagged on the currents – and vanished from sight.

As did the savage weather. The Brethren Court were not always the weak remnant of the pirate race that they were so many, many years later. Their powers equalled Calypso herself.


	8. The Parting of the Three

Before we recount the fate of our hapless, trio however – the reader must know a little something of the first. The first Convening of the Brethren Court. The first, set up there in their creaky rotting fortress of old timbers and dead war-ships and the graves of a thousand nautical dreams. Ships are always faintly alive, even when peaceably floating on calm seas, freshly painted. To sit amongst the wreckage of a thousand lost voyages means the echoes _… bounce_. Reverberate. Give the illusion, if not the reality, of wisdom to the Pirate Lords sitting esconced amongst dribbles of candlewax and old memories of rum-riddled sin.

Morgan and Bartholomew sit slouched at the table, as does the infamous Edward Teach, otherwise known as Blackbeard. Jonesy would be enchanted. Well – perhaps. Blackbeard, and his more famed cronies, have not moved from the spot for the last fifty years. And if Jonesy sought the squirming nightmare creature of his dreams, then the hollow skeleton of Blackbeard, grinning a little hollowly at the irony of it all, was all that could be wished. They sit, these old bones of dead sailors, and smile their ghastly smiles to one and all. No-one knows if they dispense wisdom or not. But the Brethren Court keep them there. In this savage age they are more dangerous, more powerful, and less cowardly than their lesser descendants would be, a scattered and pitiful race compared to the glories of the Brethren Court _then._

Take Mistress Cheng (the first – the later was a great-grand-daughter, strikingly like her ancestor). Draped in stiff ceremonial robes and a dusting of disdainful white paint, she alone, a middle-aged woman with a calculating face and hard, stony little eyes in her plump face, rules the head of the table. Sat between the gaping skulls of Morgan and Bartholomew respectively, she can with a careful word in Chinese quell the rest of the motley crew altogether. It is whispered she controls half of China, and a little of the Japanese devils who infringe on the rights of the China Sea. Most of her money is made through casually legal practices, however. Bath-houses for easy merchants and the like. But she is dangerous as a tiger, not the less so for her painted face. She keeps the sword of her Mongol warrior ancestor outstretched on the table before her. A casual warning, tempered with an immense swelling pride.

Sao Feng's 'honoured ancestor,' a somewhat gloomy poet of a buccaneer whose heart lies in the steamy by-waters of Singapore, does not look interested in the gathering. He spends his time looking down, drawing idle patterns of cherry-blossom in the puddles of spilt wine with one finger. He grudgingly acquiesces to Mistress Cheng when occasion calls for it, but other than that – looks bored. Politics, especially among pirates, does not interest him. He considers himself an artist, and would far rather write an exquisite poem on the beauty of a willow tree than put men to the sword. He is something of an anomaly in the Court. Of course, there is the usual motley assortment of the dregs, from all over the globe – Spaniards and Frenchmen and Germans and Newfoundlanders. All the detritus that the world spits out, like a bad aftertaste. But if they are dregs _here_, then they are princes amongst the offal of mankind. To be a Pirate Lord is no light honour; certain powers, privileges come with it. And once given, it is a gift for all your descendants. The title of Pirate Lord is hereditary.

But the representatives of fair England should interest the reader a little more than most – as ancestors of two whom Jones will meet, and resent, much later on in his remarkable career. But to move on to the first man…

There will always be something slightly, half heartedly educated where one's great grandson is named 'Hector.' And the life of Apollyon Barbossa was certainly something to take an interest in. He was a member of the landed gentry, and the only one with any pretensions that way – took a commission in the Navy, grew bored half-way round the world, and turned to the Devil's game of dicing with chance through the mere mendacity of it all. His only embarrassment was his name. Originally christened by an enthusiastic scholastic father _Apollo_ Barbossa (a terrible thing for any growing boy, especially one who is named after a simpering god in a short robe who plays the harp) Captain Barbossa always insisted it was _Apollyon_, not Apollo. Though as most pirates could not read, let alone make comparisons to the demon in _A Pilgrim's Progress_, this neat change was wasted on the rest of the world. Hector Barbossa may not have known it, but he was the most fortunate in a long line of unhappily named Barbossas. He looked very like his great-grandson. There was the same penchant for over-sized hats, the same vaguely foxed air of faded, casual evil – although perhaps evil is the wrong name for it. It had a humourous twinkle that said more of easily executed mortal sin than actual evil…

But the last? Ah, the last is _interesting_. Even here, at the beginning of everything, there was something equally odd about the Sparrow lounging at one end of the table. He looked like a jaded musketeer who had seen hard times; a cardsharp with fox's eyes and a Lucifer's smile. There was the faint air of diabolic quickness of mind, underneath the rum-soaked lurching. Perhaps all Sparrows took the same pattern, merely growing sour as the lines formed and the grey hairs started to show. Nate Sparrow was hard. Cunning, cool, collected, and sour, like a lemon left out to dry, and he drank steadily and gratingly at every gathering he attended. It would not be long now until his son took over in the family line. Sparrows very often didn't make it to old age. Every so often one calculated risk became one too many.

There is _one_ member of the Brethren Court, however, who is absent from the high table of state. He does attend, as punctually as his duties allow, and he often dispenses sound advice on the affairs of the Court. He is older than even Blackbeard, Morgan, or Bartholomew, gathered together in their dusty collection of bones and years and mortal dust. We shall see a little more of _him _than anyone, even Ned with his wide knowledge of grisly legend, could possibly know…

The tide, however, has spat out our heroes, with fine disdain, on a sandy shore.

Wyvern does not know, or care, where it is he has landed. The water became a confused bumping and bruising – a glaring memory of being scraped along rocks and choked, and lungs full of freezing blue fire, and it all seemed quite endless, after they disappeared into the mouth of the maelstrom. He lies like one stunned on the shore, occasionally retching water in the most miserable way. It comes out in a foul, blackened mess – mostly tobacco from Wyvern's tarred lungs.

Wyvern rather wishes _he_ was dead, but hopes Ned and Jonesy aren't. He hopes they're washed up somewhere safe and dry.

Ned lies a few feet off, face down, blinking sand from his eyelashes. He's mildly stunned by the water, but assumes he must be alive and well, since sand is not mentioned in either Heaven or Hell. He blessedly does not remember much of the water – just a great roaring, like that of a thousand gurgling lions, and dropping like a stone. Ned wishes he was back home eating oatcakes, or even on the _Dunfermline_, at a pinch. Dreaded adventures never seemed so bad as now, when actually living them.

Jonesy has been washed up in a puddle like a dead dog – and looks rather like one too, with his hair tangled over his eyes. He looks wet, and forlorn, and inexpressibly lost; somehow he expected the water to part like the Red Sea for them. Not to try and kill them. Jenny's barrel, and Jenny too, were lost in the drop and the frantic scrabble for survival. It has not yet occurred to Jonesy that Jenny is a water creature, and therefore much better off than he is, so he is sniffling behind one hand and trying not to cry. Without success. Jenny's loss hits him hard – harder than the loss of that distant mother, long dead, or the separation from his brother, long dead. He understands it now, and it is all the worse for knowing what is gone is very nearly all that little Davy possessed in the whole world…

The supposed loss of Wyvern and Ned has not yet hit home.

Wyvern rolls on his back, like a tortoise. 'Christ…' he moaned, blinking the seawater from his eyes. The sun shines sullenly down on them, very hot and very bright. 'What the hell happened? Are we… did we…'

'Wyvern?' A high-pitched, wavering voice. Ned has managed to crawl from his place in the sand over to Wyvern, stumbling down a sandy hollow as she moves. 'You're alive?'

'I hope not,' Wyvern said with a wince. His bones felt as though they had been filled with fire. 'I really hope not, Ned. It'll hurt if I'm still alive…argh…'

Ned looked as though he were ready to burst into tears. 'I want to go home!'

'You an' me both, lad.' Wyvern said wearily. 'But on the bright side – we're in one piece…' his gaze suddenly turned terrified. 'Ned, you – you were washed up with Davy-boy, right? Weren't you? _Weren't you_?!'

'I ain't seen Jonesy, Wyvern,' Ned shook his head, looking suddenly worried. Jonesy was small; easy to lose, horribly easy to be dragged under the currents and float face down in open sea or something –

Ned held back the sick plunges of his imagination with difficulty and swallowed, getting up as Wyvern scrambled frantically to his knees. 'We'd best look for him…'

To be fair, the frantic search continued for no more than perhaps fifteen minutes. None of the adventurers had been washed up very far from the other – and a loud, high-pitched wail like the shriek of a railway whistle alerted Ned and Wyvern to Jonesy. Davy had just hiccupingly worked out that if Jenny was gone, and he was alone, than so were Ned and Wyvern. He was sitting bolt upright, rigid as a wooden doll, and screaming pathetically upwards. He only screamed with slightly less volume at sight of Wyvern and Ned – hysteria had for the moment got the better of Jonesy.

Wyvern breathed a sigh of relief. 'Least he's alive, then,' he said good-humouredly. 'Blest if I thought he'd make less noise when he was dead… Ah well. Come on, now – Stow it. We're all here, ain't we? Alive? Mebbe that was all the spell's supposed to do. Get you there in one piece. Ain't no good crying over what you can't help.'

Jonesy came down from his over-excited cloud a little. 'Jenny's gone,' he said mournfully, with a quiet air of pity for himself. 'She's gone frae ever an' ever and it's all my fault, Wyvern…'

'She's in the sea, ain't she?' Wyvern could not help but feel a visible tang of relief. He blamed Jenny for their problems all the way up to the _Dunfermline_. 'I wouldn't worry, Davy boy. There's plenty for her to eat, after all – in the sea, ain't there?'

'S'ppose,' Davy conceded grudgingly. 'If ye say sae. Where _are_ we, anyway, Wyvern?' He looked up with a shiver. 'The sand's all black! I ne'er heard o' black sand before, Wyvern!'

'It's _doomed_,' Ned whimpered. 'That's why. We're in hell, as punishment for desertin'…'

Jonesy looked about with an accusing air. It didn't look much like Hell to _him_. Nor particularly to Wyvern. There was a small stretch of that odd black sand, surrounded by frowning rocks of black basalt – jagged, sharp rocks. Death of any ship that ran aground on those, for sure. And above them there was nothing but –

'Mother mine!'

Suspended, seemingly as though about to collapse upon them all, were ships. Thousands of ships – sloops, galleons, Spanish man-o' wars, pert English brigs, crafted French corvettes, deadly as fashioned knives – and one squat, black thing that looked like a prison hulk, careering crazily at the very top of the tumble of nautical engineering. It looked exactly as if some bored child had had fun in stacking them one on top of the other, and then wandered off.

'Y'know…' Wyvern said absently, staring upwards, 'I think we might just have made it to Shipwreck Cove, Jonesy.'

Ned stared upwards too, mouth open. '_Could _still be hell…' he said, in a doubtful voice. 'Maybe…'

'Ye great gowk,' Jonesy said scornfully. As a child brought up in accordance with strict Calvinist teaching he felt quite at home with what Hell looked like. 'Whae's the flames? It's nae hell if there's nae flames and scorchin' and cacklin' demons an' –an' suchlike. It doesnae look like _this_….' His fascinated gaze went upwards, as though on a string. 'Whae holds it all up, Wyvern? It should just fall all over an' crush everyone.'

Wyvern shivered. 'Don't talk about that, there's a good lad, Davy boy. Gives me the collywobbles, that does.'

'There's a light in every porthole!' Ned whispered, reverently. 'Hey… we could steal one, Jonesy! Get your ship – a proper one, maybe!' He pointed a finger. 'Get the Spanish one, with the gold trim, Jonesy! Bet it's full of gold!'

Davy wandered over to where a ship pointed dangerously upended; the bowsprit was seemingly suspended like a spear above the huddled little group on the sands. He stared curiously up at the peeling figurehead, standing on tiptoe to see better. A blistered wooden effigy of a woman smiled waveringly down on him, wings outspread.

Davy shook his head, a little frightened. 'I think they're _deid_ ships.' He said, in a cracked little whisper, looking out from under his fringe with a worried look. It was as though he was frightened of the ships overhearing. 'They don't look _alive…'_

'What? How can ships be dead, Jonesy? They ain't _alive _in the first place!'

'Well… n-ooo,' Davy conceded reluctantly. 'But they dinnae feel… nice. They look sortae …sad, an' I think they're a bit like – ye knae how the rottin' bones o'

Black Blood Sam are left in the story? Tae guard his sill'er? They look like that.'

Ned did know. The story was an excellent one, and one of his best. He shuddered. 'Like that? Jonesy, how do you-'

But exactly how Davy knew, Ned was destined never to find out. There was a hoarse cry of 'Ware!' from an alarmed Wyvern, a confused scuffle in the sand – something heavy exploding behind Ned's head in a vicious whirl of coloured lights as a musket butt was drawn back for a second blow…

Jonesy almost made it. He ran indignantly forward, yelped, ran back a few paces, began running in earnest, eyes alighting on the dropped fowling piece of Wyverns…

'Oh no you don't, brat!'

Jonesy whirled around with a handful of sand in one fist and flung it at the eyes of the burly fellow who swooped upon him, scrabbling away in the dirt as the man howled, his hands clapped over his eyes. Another hand darted towards him, but Jonesy evaded it, making one last burst of desperate energy to leap for the fowling piece –

Before a boot casually dropped upon it before his hand could reach it, kicking it away into the surf. Davy was left frozen, with one hand still outstretched, looking up into a lean, golden-brown face with an easy serpentine smile.

'Good try,' it said amiably. 'Not good enough. Fiery little sprog, ain't it? Shame you had to light here. No outsiders leave Shipwreck Cove. I'll be half-sorry to put a bullet through its _brains_…'

'We're not outsiders!' Wyvern choked. He had been pinioned early – his fighting spirit was not what it had been. 'Leave the boy, I'm the one who had us try for here –I had the Card! The Devil's Picture Book!'

'We did! We did!' Ned agreed desperately. 'Ask Wyvern! We came here for Jonesy's sake!'

Davy had been wrestled – with some difficulty, for he twisted like an eel, scratching, biting, kicking, and generally making himself awkward – to his small knees by one of the burly crew who had been sent to subdue the three 'outsiders.'

The leader of the party (for it was Nate Sparrow, and less inclined to be magnanimous than his great-grandson) raised an expressive eyebrow. 'An' the squawkin' brat is the one you call Jonesy? Is he so wonderful a mariner that you must bring… it?' he looked down, distastefully, 'To us? The Brethren Court?'

'I'll tell on ye!' Jonesy screamed, in a high-pitched shriek. 'I'll tell my Pretty Lady on ye, an' she'll get ye! She will!'

'God, a wild Scots too! More's the _pity_,' Nate said musingly. 'Rare in these waters. Like finding a kelpie.' He cocked one pistol thoughtfully. 'Fire on my signal, eh? Boys? A neat one through the head should do it.'

'Ask him about the Pretty Lady!' Ned yelled. 'Ask him what her name is! You won't smile then, will you? Not once you know _who_ he's talking about!'

Nate recoiled slightly, his brows knitting together. For one moment Wyvern feared he would simply fire anyway – but he drew the pistol away.

'Who, old man? Mistress Cheng? Rather young to be in her claws, but I'd believe anything of the old witch…'

'Her who must not be named on water,' Wyvern said hesitantly, evading the name. 'Her who the Brethren Court can summon. Lady of the Braided Hair, sir, was the Greek name for her, and-'

'Calypso!' Ned shouted. 'That's it! Calypso, Calypso, Calypso-'

The captain's eyes widened, huge in his head, before striking Ned across the mouth with the butt of his pistol. 'Speak it carefully, you little fool!' He hissed. 'It might be the last name you utter!'

Ned spat out a bloodied tooth sullenly. 'Not laughing now, are you?' he said sulkily. He was right. The crew had gone deadly silent, their faces pale as beeswax. The man holding Jonesy let go, very quickly, crossing himself hastily as he did so.

'Hah, told ye!' Davy, out of some sense of offended pride, considered their narrow escape was all down to him, and glared triumphantly at them all. 'She'll get ye all an' drown ye an' fill ye'r bones wi' red-hot lead frae that!'

'Really,' Nate Sparrow said vaguely, peering at his pistol with a nonchalant air. 'What are you then, lad? Mortal son o' – her who must not be named on water?'

'I'm a captain, ye know!' Jonesy said importantly. 'Pretty Lady _said_.'

Nate's smile faded, slowly, from his lean face. '_Did_ she now?' he said slowly. 'That was very… _kind_ of her. What would prompt such favour from her who… must not be named on water?'

'Why do ye keep sayin' _that_?' Davy said irritably, looking up with peeved electric blue eyes. 'That's nae _polite_, ye knae. How'd ye like it if I called ye 'he whae must nae be named?' 'Sides, I've known the Pretty Lady frae ever n' _ever_, and she doesnae mind bein' the Pretty Lady. Ye should just gi'e her a _nice_ name.'

The Pirate Lord seemed mildly staggered at the impromptu lecture from a seven-year old on the niceties of addressing goddesses – but however astonished he was, he soon recovered enough for a quick gesture to his men. Whether they were killed now or later, they were still prisoners.

'Let's see… I think,' Nate mused, resting his chin on the muzzle of his pistol. 'I think – take the man and the other boy to the Court. We'll get to the bottom of this soon enough. Like it though I _don't_. And the boy – the boy… let him wait for… _judgement_, on the jetty. I'll not be responsible for letting him in the Brethren Court. No telling what the brat can do.'

Ned unstuck his mouth. 'That's not _fair!_' he said indignantly. 'Jonesy can't hurt a fly! He's only little! Give him a chance! He's not dangerous or anything, he's my _friend!_'

'Choose your friends more carefully, then,' Nate Sparrow said tranquilly. 'He'll come to no harm – unless he is a very stupid child and disturbs… _him.'_

Even Jonesy did not like the way the man said '_him_' with such dark relish. He looked up with an expression of terror, tugging worriedly on Wyvern's coat. 'Whae's _him_, Wyvern?'

'Well – shall I put it in a way you can understand? If you hear tales of us, boy, then we hear tales of _him_.' Nate grinned humourlessly. 'Imagine how much worse _he_ must be.'

Jonesy's eyes went into huge electric blue saucers. 'P-please…' he said shakily. 'Cannae I nae stay wi' Wyvern? Or… Wyvern, couldnae ye stay wi'-'

'I have to _explain_ things,' Wyvern said, throwing a sour glance at Nate Sparrow. 'To these _gentlemen_. I'll not be long, Davy boy. Promise. There now! Don't cry! Don't cry! You'll be alright, promise…'

'I wouldn't count on it,' Nate said sourly, gesturing pointedly with the pistol. 'No sudden movements, please, gentlemen – my boys get rather _nervous_ if people do anything stupid like – I don't know – _try to escape_.'

'Please,' Wyvern pleaded, 'Please – let Ned go with Jonesy, eh? Two boys together, they'll be better than one…'

Too late. Davy, with a long, drawn out wail, had been roughly detached from Wyvern's coat – as though he were a stubborn limpet – and was plucked aside by one of the burly men who marched him off with barely a second's hesitation. Poor little Jonesy kept trying to turn his head, to look back with frightened wobbly eyes –

A door slammed between them, cutting Wyvern and Ned off from their small charge.

Wyvern didn't think he could ever forgive himself as he heard the echo of Davy's frantic sobs on the other side of the great gate.

Nate was watching the old man's face narrowly. 'He'll be well enough,' he said testily. 'If what you tell us proves true. I hope it does, for your sake. Calypso is not one for having her name taken in vain; specially amongst sea-faring folk.' He turned his head, shaking his mane of greying dark hair over his shoulders. 'This way, gents. And good luck to us all – we'll need it…'


	9. The Fallen

Nate Sparrow led the subdued little group along with a studiously blank face. It gave little, if any, indication of how much the revelation had disturbed him. Calypso was a shapeless dread, a monstrous thing, and best left undisturbed in whatever murky waters she haunted. The Brethren Court had good reason to fear her, as the only real threat to their dominion of the tropical waters. She was as shapeless as Grendel's mother, and almost as loathsome. When she did appear, it was never in any favourable shape towards the upstarts who tried their paltry mortal tricks upon her kingdom.

However, there were …_exceptions_. The ancient Greek gods were certainly not of the platonic, placid variety, and where Calypso briefly loved and left, there were traces. Odysseus, sometimes named Ulysses, was perhaps the only man to escape the cycle of disaster that followed those ill fated enough to attract Calypso's brief attention. But they were full-grown men, Nate mused, with an uneasy flicker of a glance towards his captives. Not babes in arms with shrill voices and rumpled stockings. Calypso had never been the _motherly_ sort, surely? Could the leopard change its spots?

This would need the advice of the full Court in session. Nate did not dare to presume in such troubled waters…

Wyvern, however, knew nothing of his captor's plans. He hardly knew if they were to die, or Jonesy was to die, or they all three were to die – or whether there would be some scarce-hoped-for amnesty on diabolical conditions. He stumbled along with a wretched look, his bowed shoulders shrinking into his jacket. He looked twice his age already since Jonesy had been cut off from them all. Even now they could still hear a faint wail following them along the passageway. Or was it some other lost soul, washed up here with neither a token nor an excuse? Wyvern wondered, with a shudder, and then decided he no longer cared to know or to think about it. He steered Ned along, laying a reassuring hand upon the trembling boy's shoulders, and prayed for a miracle. God knew he had little enough comfort to offer, but somehow, it was as though nothing terrible could happen if they stayed fast and stuck together. It was a feeble, sickly sort of comfort, but it was all there was.

Nate's men blindfolded them before they were allowed to enter the warren of passages that led to the great Court itself. There was nothing, perhaps in the whole course of their travels here, that was worse than that brief moment of blind disorientation, being led through nothing into nothing, hardly knowing whether what lay at the end of the corridor tokened disaster or salvation. Ned was whimpering under his breath as they were pushed forward, dragged down stone steps, pulled up rickety wooden steps that smelt dankly of fouled seawater…

'Let the Court see the trespassers.' Nate Sparrow's voice was grim, behind them. A door was pushed open, and the glare and heat of strong light fell full upon the dazed captives' faces.

The blindfolds were pulled from their eyes, then. They could take in the full glory of the Brethren Court.

It was a crazed collection of half a dozen's ships, dashed tog ether into what could be considered a great and grand hall – if the imagination took a great leap. It was closer to the tobacco-laced fug of some disreputable wayside inn, to Wyvern's eye. _Here_ there would be the rotting gilded whorls of some Spanish galleon's cabin- of-state,_ there _the splintered remnants of some smashed warship's gun deck, a rusted cannon riding anchored to the boards in a pool of its own rust. And in the centre of this madman's feasting place, a great table covered in wine-stains and candle grease, where the bright light of a thousand candles moored in crevices in the peeling wood dazzled the eyes and made bright blue flashes of light float upon the mind.

Ned raised a hand to shade his eyes., staring at the table. Twelve pairs of eyes stared back, curious, a little irritated at such low beings interrupting the honour of thieves and vagabonds.

'What is this?' The clipped, nasally tones of Mistress Cheng spoke first. 'Master Nathaniel – what _are_ these two _puppets_?'

'Trespassers, Mistress,' Nathaniel spoke curtly, unsheathing his sword with coldly accurate fingers. He disliked Mistress Cheng. She was arrogant, and took great pleasure in making the captain the surly joker of the group. It was something his descendants would never _quite_ live down. Never again would there be a taciturn member of the Sparrow tree.

The Frenchman upon the right waved two elegant fingers in a token of dismissal. 'Bah, are you foolish, M'sieur?' he drawled. 'Even my crew would 'ave known what to do wi'z trespesseurs, _non?_ This is not a matter for ze Court. Take z'em and quietly slit their throats. It is the only thing to do – and ze good Captain of ze black ship will know best how to dispatch them in ze afterlife…'

'Not a job for the good Dutchman, I fancy,' Nathaniel said dryly. 'Not when they mention her who must not be…' He halted. Perhaps Jonesy's lecture had hit home, perhaps not, but for some reason he did not want to make such a worthless evasion. 'The Goddess walks abroad,' he said brusquely. 'An' they-' he pointed with his cutlass at Wyvern and Ned, who flinched, 'Know more than they'll say about it, I'll wager. I daren't let the third one in the court, for fear of what _he _is.'

There was a sudden chill silence. The mention of Calypso had that effect upon the Brethren Court.

'Please, sirs –' Wyvern said timidly. 'And lady (begging your pardon I'm sure, Ma'am), I… I was the one what come here to your reverences. I brought the Devil's Picture Book as proof – look!'

Wyvern triumphantly produced the slightly soggy piece of pasteboard, lying it flat down on the greasy surface of the table. The inks had run a little in the wetting they had all had from the maelstrom, but it was quite clearly what it was reputed to be.

'So…you're an ally to the Court.' This from Apollyon Barbossa, and mildly spoken it was too, from beneath the great shadow of his plumed hat. 'Or have knowledge of us, at least. To turn pirate yourself?'

'No!' Wyvern said indignantly. 'I was raised a God-fearing man, sir, and I'd rather be damned than turn to that! Not with the lads!'

'The 'lads?' Apollyon raised one eyebrow. 'I see only one. Be the other the 'third' that has Nate so afeared?'

Wyvern shook himself free of the crewman's hand on his shoulder, and took a brave step forward. 'It's cruel,' he said distinctly, 'And it's cowardly, for yon pirate Lord to take against a child scarce seven year old, sir. For what ain't his fault. He could hardly escape it, poor mite. But he's right. It's about the boy I've come, sirs, and Ned here will bear out what I say is true.' Wyvern cast an appealing glance about the table, shuddering slightly as his gaze fell on the grinning remains of the late Bartholomew. But the thought of Jonesy made him bear up. 'That boy out there, sirs, is bein'… _marked_ by Calypso. I don't know what else to call it. She don't let him alone, sirs. She –'

But at this the Court suddenly burst into horrified uproar.

'Impossible!' bawls Mistress Cheng, flakes of white powder falling from her creased cheeks like snow. 'Calypso does not favour mortals! She gives them a fiar wind, at her most merciful, but no more!'

'Z'is is blasphemy! Ze Goddess will bring a curse upon all our head for z'is man's damnable lies! Blasphemy!'

The Spaniard's emotion is so great he cannot keep from pouring out a stream of Spanish oaths, fires his pistol into the air with an explosive outpouring of rage.

Feng says nothing himself; merely looks wistful. But he stands with Mistress Cheng in her swelling outrage. Nate looks cynical, and begins to rock back and forth on his heels, whistling with an air of unconcern.

Barbossa, however, smiles. Lazily, and with a slightly superior look that shows he certainly _knows_ more (in many senses of the word) of Calypso than he would ever share with the Court.

'Enough.' He says, simply. The Court's noise dies at once. 'Protest all you like, masters, but there have been such things before. And no doubt there will be again' His brows drew together. 'You say a _child_, man?'

'Not seven years old, sir!' Wyvern said strongly. 'It ain't like what I've heard tell o' Calypso. It don't feel good. I've seen her. She… the Goddess, meanin' no respect, ain't _right.'_

'Meaning?' Sao Li speaks at last, in a hoarse, rasping bark of a voice that nearly scares Wyvern out of his wits. But he answers according to his lights. He's far too deep to think of avoiding offence.

'Meaning she _plays_ with the poor child, sir!' Wyvern snaps. 'Like – like he's a _pretty_ toy, or summat. Lord knows, perhaps she means kindly by him – Jonesy has some odd idea she'll be a mother to him, though I don't know the truth of that. But she keeps _interfering_! She's looked into his future – read all sorts of strange things he don't understand. And neither do _I_.'

Barbossa does look grim now. 'Such things are forbidden,' he says slowly, in a voice replete with menace. 'To the Goddess. She is not permitted to tangle with the lives of men to that extent – not any more, at any rate. These are not the old days of the Romans.'

'There were rules!' Mistress Cheng says indignantly.

Barbossa half-smiles. 'Perhaps they are _not_ to Calypso.' His face grows grave again. 'Bu this must not be, you are right. A bond has been broken here. There is an ancient compact with the Goddess that has been betrayed –for a child. A mere brat…'

Ned's face flushes, angrily. 'Jonesy isn't a brat!' he says, quickly. ''Sides, the way Jonesy tells it, she took pity on him, Wyvern! He near fell into the sea in mid-winter when he was a babe and she saved him. He doesn't know why, no more n' I do, but…' Ned looks unhappily downwards, twisting his gangly hands round and round each other. 'I don't think she means bad, sirs.' He stares appealingly at the serried ranks of pirates looking down on them. '_Why_ is she so bad? What harm will she _do_?'

'Do?'Nate Sparrow lets out a harsh laugh. 'Well, according to legend she…'

'Every encounter with Calypso,' Barbossa responds quietly, with the air of man who knows of what he speaks. 'Has a cost. Mind, I don't say _what_, or _how_, but generally, there's something steep, masters. She don't mean it.' He looks at Ned, 'You're right, boy. But that don't matter in the end, d'ye see? It happens anyway.'

'Barbossa knows.' Sao Li speaks for the second, and last, time that day. '_He's _paid.'

Barbossa smiles, but it is strained, a faintly pained look that flickers over his face before being replaced with a bitter sort of exultation. The rest of the Brethren Court lean slightly away from him, with an uneasy glance.

'Paid with my estates, if you like,' he says lightly. 'I say no more. But what a man can lose, he does, in the company of Calypso.'

Ned is doing some horrible calculations inside his head. 'The night Jonesy got saved from drowning…' he says slowly '…That was the night Jonesy's pa drowned at sea…'

Wyvern looks surprised. 'He never told me that.'

'Told me.' Ned said dully. 'I'm goin' to be his first mate, remember? He don't like it. Makes him cry. And after she gave him the Kraken thing…'

A horrified scream from Mistress Cheng.

'Then Joshy… and we lost our places on the _Dunfermline_…' Ned was thinking fast now. 'And now… now we nearly lost our lives coming here because he met her on the beach…Oh, Wyvern…'

* * *

Jonesy beat on the door with his small fists for as long as he could still hear Wyvern's voice on the other side of it. Wyvern's voice sounded very small, very far-off, and there was a dull knot of panic tightening in Davy's stomach even now. He had never been away from Wyvern. Wyvern had always been there, an ambling, gently reliable presence in the background, and even as he shouted Wyvern's voice was going, going, - and then the distant slam and click of a door closing, a bolt shooting into place, and little Jones was left quite….alone. With only his thoughts (no very cheerful ones, and mostly to do with grinning skeletons and unseen _somethings_ in the darkness waiting to eat small Dundee boys).

The sharp click of another bolt shooting into place made him turn about, dispiritedly. Too late. There had been another door, which the great burly man had just stepped smartly through, locking it behind him as he went.

Trapped.

To his credit, Davy did not cry this time. He merely stayed rooted to the spot, shivering a little, and looked about him, weighing up the places where the terrible _him_ could leap out.

There was a wall of sheer rock, mingled with pieces of old boat timber, behind him – part of the many bastions of Shipwreck Cove. Jonesy's scuffed and battered shoes were set on boards suspended above water; he could hear the slap of waves sound lazily below his feet. Jonesy curled in his toes involuntarily; he did not like water after the recent wetting. There were old lobster pots and upturned buckets and piles of torn nets, too – dumped haphazardly like a great sprawling creature. Davy gave it a nervous look, and edged by it on tiptoe, in case the terrible _him_ was amongst them, waiting to pounce, and then gave a little stumbling run. There was a creaking wooden jetty running the length of a moored ship – perhaps if Jonesy ran to the end without looking back, then the terrible _him_ wouldn't catch him…

Of such little superstitions were Jonesy's life made. Breaking into a shambling run, and accompanied by an awful warning groan of creaking planks, Jonesy hared desperately down the jetty breathing hard, not daring to so much as flick a glance over his shoulder. Until he made it to the comforting bulk of the moored ship. Jonesy set one hand on it; ships made him feel safe, at least. They were so ordinary a thing that they could not quite be part of anything truly _terrible_. It was a nice ship; Jonesy looked at it approvingly. A three-master. The _Dunfermline_ had been a three-master; but she had been a merchant ship, slow and sturdy. This ship had a rough-hewn sleekness to it that even childish eyes admired. It looked… _fast_.

Jonesy was half-tempted to climb aboard for a better look – it was only the sheer terror of _him_ that kept him from it. 'I've got tae be good.' He said firmly to himself. Good, so as not to rouse '_him_' from whatever _he_ did…

'Agh!'

A distant bearded face, far-away, and seemingly rather small, had peered short-sightedly over the taffrail with the air of an absent-minded intellectual. Jonesy, with a squeak of fright, fell backwards. He hadn't been quiet enough. It was…

Not _him. _For one thing, Jonesy had a fixed idea that if _he_ was human, then _he_ would be a horrible leering creature with a handkerchief tied round his head and a bloodstained cutlass in one hand. The face looking back at the child looked tired, a little weary, but not at all leering. It was very puzzling. Jonesy couldn't make head or tail of it. It also looked vaguely surprised at such a small child being there _at all_.

There was a moment's speculative silence, punctuated only by Jonesy's panicked breathing.

'You are very small boy,' the man remarked. He had a strong accent; almost as strong as Jonesy's, in one peculiar fashion. It went up and down in a strange singsong intonation as though he were playing a pleasant-voiced clarinet.

Davy sniffled rebelliously and shook his hair out of his eyes. 'Sae?' he said fiercely. 'I cannae help that, can I?'

'No.' the man said generously, half-smiling. 'I suppose not. We are all what we are made to be, _ja_? No helping that. And you are foreigner like myself, I see.'

'Eh… Scots.' Jonesy shuffled one foot, squeezing water out of one soggy stocking. 'Whae ye from, Mister? Ye a New World man? From the Americas?'

'I? _Niet_, child – I am _Nederlander.'_ The dark-haired fellow suddenly threw a glance at Jonesy, who looked uncomprehending. 'Dutch.' He said kindly.

Now, a wiser, or more well-informed child might have quietly retreated at this point, and asked no further. Davy, however, was blessed with ignorance on anything further than the Isle of Mull. Holland was a mere association of tulips, windmills, and pigtailed girls carrying round wheels of cheese. 'That's nice, Mister,' he said cheerfully, looking up amiably. 'I'd like tae go there, one day – Wyvern's been tae Amsterdam. There's big ships there an' it's the best place in the world frae tobacco – Wyvern says. He says he'd be a happy man if he could sit there an' do naethin' but smoke…Mind if I come aboard, Mister?' Jonesy's voice suddenly grew urgent. 'Only there's a monster about an' I dinnae want it tae eat me…'

'Ah,' The man said knowingly. 'If you wish, child.' He threw a confounded glance at Jonesy. 'You _are_ very odd child. Are you not _frightened_?'

'Muir frightened o' the monster,' Jonesy panted, getting one small foot up and swarming up the side of the ship. The climbing prowess of small boys is not to be underestimated. 'I'd ne'er be frightened o' a three master. It's a guid ship. Ye the helmsman, mister?'

'Captain,' corrected the gentleman, with a quiet twinkle in one eye. But he was all solemnity as he held out one hand. 'But pleased to make your acquaintance. Cornelius Vanderdecken.'

The name struck no chords with Davy. Perhaps it should have done. But the name was never featured in the annals of Ned, and so Jonesy thought no more of it than he did his own, which he proffered with an exultant air.

'I'm goin' tae be a Captain, one day,' he said importantly. 'When I'm big. Guid tae meet ye, sir! I thought there was nae-one but pirates _here_. Ye look tae nice tae be here.'

'You look small to be here,' retorted Vanderdecken – but amiably. There was a faintly gratified look that seemed to express the melancholy gentleman did not often receive compliments. 'It is not good that childs should be in Shipwreck Cove…'

'Oh, I'm here frae the Pretty Lady,' Jonesy said easily, swinging one foot absently as he perched on the bulwarks. 'On _business._' He looked approvingly round. 'Say, I like ye'r ship, sir. She's skeely, ye knae. Whae's she called?'

'You wish to know?' Vanderdecken looked faintly uneasy, for a moment. But then he shrugged, and produced a pipe from somewhere about his person. 'In my young days – she was the _Pride of Haarlem._ To my mind, she is still the _Haarlem_. But to others – well, she is one with me. She has simply become… the _Dutchman_. And the _Dutchman_ she shall stay.'


End file.
